Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life
by BrethlessM
Summary: Sequel to An Iron Man Christmas Carol. (Recommended reading, but not required.) Two years after his life-changing, ghostly encounter on Christmas Eve, Tony faces trials that threaten to defeat him. The hurt he causes those around him leaves a despairing Tony questioning his purpose, and once more, a spirit from his past comes to pick up the pieces. T/P
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: Hello, everyone! It's taken XX years, but I've finally written this. If you've been waiting for it, sorry for the delay. If you've forgotten who I am and are wondering what this notification is for - sorry. _

_I wanted to first, thank my Beta, Mel, without whom this never would have gotten written. _

_Second, this is a sequel. If you're here and have never real An Iron Man Christmas Carol, you don't have to do that, but you should. Not just because I wrote it, but because - well - sequel. _

_If you've decided to opt out on the first installment (shame on you), here's the breakdown of what you should know before you delve into this fic:_

_'IM:IAWL' starts three years after Tony was held hostage in Afghanistan. Two years before 'IM:IAWL', 'AIMCC' takes place. Faced with spending another Christmas Eve drunk and alone, he was visited by four spirits - Yinsin, then his father was Christmas Past, his mother was Christmas Present, and Stane was Christmas Future. Their message was that if he didn't tell Pepper how he felt, horrible things would happen. Tony doesn't want to tell her because he doesn't think he's good enough for her and will only end up hurting her. Dad showed him his relationship with former girlfriend, Sunset Bain, who ripped him off. His mother emphasized the importance of love in his life in all forms, not just for a partner or with friends, but with his community. Stane showed Tony the tragic fate he and Pepper are destined for. Happy ending for all, yay! Go read it, it's better that way._

_Thank you for reading. - KNH_

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter One**_

May

"_Breaking News: The U.S. Embassy in Kabul was attacked this morning by members of an Islamic fundamentalist political group known as-_

June

" _-Gauntlet is accused of abducting more than a hundred women and young girls from their homes throughout the Kandahar province this afternoon. Their whereabouts are currently unknown, but in a video, their leader issued a challenge to..."_

July

"_My fellow Americans. Our country faces severe hardship; but we cannot meet them if_

_the challenges of our past are left unattended. The state of our economy is poor; jobs have been lost; many have suffered, and continue to do so. For these reasons, it would be irresponsible, at this time, for the United States to enter into a costly war with the terrorist organization known as Gauntlet, or with the country in which they reside. To do so would put undue strain on our already burdened country, and ailing communities._

"_Non-combatant ground troops have been placed in Afghanistan, and will serve as a deterrent against those who have taken it upon themselves to threaten this great nation. I say to them that we are not weak, nor will we be idle. We will be vigilant, and will be prepared for-"_

August

"…_the bombing of a transport filled with American military personnel on their way to Kandahar has been confirmed. Gauntlet has claimed responsibility for the attack, and recent evidence has come to light, linking the organization to the terrorist cell known as the Ten Rings. This is the same organization involved in the kidnapping, three years ago, of billionaire Tony-"_

September

" –_Stark is nowhere to be seen."_

"_Bill, why is he even a part of this conversation?"_

"_Doesn't he have some sort of obligation? If we go to war, we're going to need weapons, and until three years ago, he was the best in the business. The President has called on all Americans to support our troops; this would be a much better way to do it than hosting those charity fundraisers of his."_

"_That raise millions."_

"_Let him raise money for other causes, Jon - or additionally."_

"_Doesn't he has a contract with the government? They could always enforce that. But he hasn't exactly been idle. He's got his hands in everything."_

"_This is a matter of whether or not he has a duty to use his talents for the good of his fellow man, and if so, where would his abilities best be of service. Considering the threat we're facing, devoting his energies to-"_

October

"_-Iron Man is a waste of time?"_

"_No one's saying that, Ann, but Iron Man is one person. An entire army of Iron Men would send a strong message to Gauntlet."_

"_I've heard that he's refused to allow anyone to even touch the Iron Man technology but himself. For someone who says he's lost his appetite for weapons, it looks like he just went and created a bigger and better one for himself."_

"_So, they used to call him the Merchant of Death. He spends three months in Afghanistan, doing who knows what, and suddenly, it's like he's born again. Now he refuses to manufacture weapons, even when they might be needed... If thousands are dying because he won't do his part, isn't that the same thing?"_

"_Alright, Pete. Let's be fair - there are other weapons manufacturers."_

"_Who, Hammer Industries? Be serious - there's a reason they call Stark the modern da Vinci, and it has nothing to do with an interest in egg tempura paint."_

November

"…_just two weeks after journalist Lane Park was executed by firing squad, humanitarian aid worker, Theresa Klein, was stoned to death this afternoon, bringing the number of American civilians in Afghanistan murdered by Gauntlet to thirteen. Whether the President will take action in light of these mounting hostilities…"_

December

"_...mounting criticism against industrialist Tony Stark, due to his continued silence in response to the suggestion made that Stark Industries reopen its weapons manufacturing division, which Stark personally closed four years ago next March._

"_Meanwhile, employees of Stark Industries have reported encountering negative backlash for what a growing percentage of the country is beginning to perceive as Stark's 'crime'."_

"I wore my S.I. security badge when I went out to lunch last week, and, ah, the woman behind the counter refused to serve me."

"Someone threw a can of soda at me yesterday as I was driving out of the employee parking garage. Damn near broke my windshield."

"My parents wants me to quit, but Mr. Stark has been so good to us. My brother, though, he gave notice this morning. He's worried about what to say on his resume, and his wife's real sick."

"_Ms. Pepper Potts, personal assistant to Tony Stark, issued a statement today at Stark Industries, apparently speaking on behalf of her employer, providing the first glimpse we've had in months of what people in the Stark camp have been thinking amid this fury:_

"We don't deny our past, here at Stark Industries; to do so would go against everything we have worked so hard to achieve since we ceased manufacturing weapons. We know that many of you encourage us to resume that line of work, and in that, you will be disappointed. We have seen Stark Industry weapons in the hands of men like those who now threaten us. Men who used our weapons to terrorize, to kill, and to control, others. We will not make more, even with the best of intentions - protecting our own - only to see them turned against us again. Instead, we will continue to find alternate means of defending this country, and her troops.

"A brief word to our employees - those who've stayed, as well as those who've left. We appreciate all the work you've done for us, as we apologize for all the hardship you've endured. We can't understand your personal struggles, but if there is anything we can do to support you in these difficult times, please come to us.

"That will be all for tonight. No questions - thank you."

"_No word yet on why it was Ms. Potts who addressed the press today and not Stark Industries C.E.O., Tony Stark, who has become increasingly less visible over the past six months - his last sighting outside of Stark Tower, was over six weeks ago. - Bob?"_

** Now...**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Two**_

_December 24 - 8:00 pm_

He was a good driver - an excellentone. Even before it was legal for him to sit behind the wheel of his father's 1957 Corvette Stingray, Tony had learned to relish the feel of an engine rumbling beneath him - not just a virile animal coiled with predatory anticipation responding eagerly to his touch, but as much a part of him as hand or arm. He had never once doubted his control.

The roll down the embankment was not his first accident, but it had been more that four years since the last. He hadn't had much reason to drink to excess since then, not with Pepper. Not in the reckless, careless way where the rich make look desirable what the poor make look pitiful. Not till now.

Consciousness returned him first to a mindless place where accidents were an impossibility, and Tony sought refuge in that uncomplicated haven until some inadvertent movement sent a frigid chill of pain through his ribs.

His eyes opened wide. Suspended by his seatbelt, the great Stingray above him was a twisted sculpture of questionable salvation. Gritting his teeth, Tony released the belt's catch, air still hissing sharply through his teeth when he fell with minimal grace to the mangled roof beneath him.

Panting, Tony suppressed an urge to throw up that he wasn't certain he could attribute to months of heavy drinking, or pain. He hoped it was the latter; more of the former was the perfect cure for it. Tony cackled a small, harsh, laugh, incongruous with his mood. There wasn't enough liquor in New York to scrub out the trail of destruction he'd left in his wake, but he was going to do his damndest to try to forget.

That was how he'd gotten here now, where not even Happy would be coming for him.

"Are you going to come out of there?"

A light shone through the crazed glass of a window, illuminating the face of Tony on the other side, where he lay curled around his self-loathing. He almost said 'no'. Instead, he raised himself up on the arm that didn't feel as though it were on fire, gummed pieces of the windshield raining down on him as his brain caught up. The police. Just what was needed to make his Christmas Eve merry and bright. It wouldn't be the first year he'd spent it drunk and in jail, nor would it be the first year Pepper would have to come bail him out. No, wait- she wouldn't be doing that anymore, would she?

She deserved better. They all did.

Tony slid gingerly through the window of the car, assisted by the firm grip on his arm, hauling him forward without regard for his injuries. Choking on a sharp cry of pain, Tony rolled protectively inward like a hedgehog protecting his soft underbelly, and shielding his eyes from the glare, looked up at the officer. "What are you, the Jaws of Life? I have broken bones, you-"

The nimbus surrounding his rescuer's face dimmed to nothing, leaving them both illuminated by nothing but the moon and a streetlamp from the road thirty feet above them. The man had no flashlight that could have accounted for the shine that had blinded Tony, but that was not the most unaccountable thing about him.

Standing over Tony was his father.

Tony's face turned to stone. "Am I dead?" He'd thought he would be more certain when it happened. Though never a religious man, a brush with the spirit world two years ago had forced him to reconsider his stance on the hereafter, and come to the belief that whatever was going on there was too strange for him to understand.

It made a perverse sort of sense that at the end of his life, Tony would find himself standing before his father's judgment, the unluckiest penitent child to walk the earth. "I'm guessing this isn't heaven."

Howard Stark's dark eyes radiated blistering scorn, his head giving a terse shake, though not in answer to either of his son's questions. Everything in his demeanor indicated that he was unimpressed by what he saw. "You're not dead yet, but you're working hard at it, aren't you?"

Tony let his father help him to his feet, noting, as he had the first time the older man had appeared to him after his death, the impossible tangibility and disconcertingly tempertureless feel of his skin. It went a long way toward proving to Tony that this wasn't just an alcohol induced phantasm, or a side effect of the accident. "Everyone should have a hobby. Pepper would be so-" his expression pinched, and from a different agony than his broken ribs. Apparently, he still had some shame left.

"Go home." It was a tone Tony remembered well, and his hackles rose. "You're acting like a child." Howard looking mournfully at his Stingray - Tony's Stingray, and again, Tony felt as though he were about to be spanked, or sent to his room to, 'think about what he'd done'.

"I've spent my whole life acting like a child - no!" He interrupted the obvious comment threatening to drip wryly from his father's curled lips. "I mean that I blindly followed what you and Obie knew best, without even caring about whether or not it was right."

"Son, right and wrong-"

"Don't Freud me, dad!" Round-eyed, slick-skinned, Tony's vision narrowed. It was getting harder to breathe. "Forget about me - people I love are reaping the consequences of my ignorance. Of my foolishly hubristic thought that I could just take it all back." A reedy laugh escaped him, trickling away into nothing in mere seconds. He sank back against a tree, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly.

Howard looked on with shadowed features, appearing aged, and sounding weary. "Son, we made our choices. Both saved lives."

"Yeah. Look at everyone rushing to agree with you now."

Howard was implacable. "Since when have you cared what they think? Any soldier will tell you that collateral damage is the price-"

"I am not a soldier!" A wave of nausea nearly felled Tony as he straightened too quickly and too emphatically. He was not a soldier. Not for his father, not for Stane, not for Fury, and sure as hell not for the government. His arm throbbed, and drawing in a breath was torturous. "I can't take back what was, but I won't justify it with lofty goals, and I won't go back just because it's what they want. But they won't-" Tony's vision wavered, and he put a hand to his head. It came away wet.

Unmoving, or unmoved, Howard commented flatly, "But you're weak. You're letting the past influence you, and it's hurting you." Tony could hear, rather than see, his father's lip curl in a sneer.

It was his familiarity with that harsh charge that prompted any answer from Tony at all. "It's hurting everyone. Everyone I love, everyone I - just, everyone." He examined the blood on his hand. Likely not a serious injury, but it would bleed like hell. Tony felt a tinge of regret that didn't surprise him as much as he thought it should have. He should probably sit down.

Sliding down against a rocky outcropping, Tony came to a rest on a bolder and wiped his hand along the leg of his slacks. Pepper would be furious. The memory of her face rose in his mind, not even two hours before, and the pain on her face as he had left her. He touched his bleeding scalp again.

"They all would probably have been better off if you and mom had decided on a dog instead of a kid." He snorted. "You wouldn't have liked a dog any better, though."

There was a long silence, save for symphonic wildlife in the darkness around them, Howard finally spoke. "You don't mean that."

"None of the contributions I've made to this world are worth the lives it cost." Pepper's face floated to the forefront of his memory again. "Or the hurt I've caused Pepper." Resentment was a brief and bitter coal he couldn't fan life into. Two years ago, a haunt of spirits, including his father, had nudged him into a more intimate entanglement with Pepper. He loved her, trusted her, and had seen how denying that could hurt her. Now, his fears about telling her were coming true.

Howard Stark could hardly help but sense the direction of his son's thoughts, but he knew as well as Tony did, what would have befallen both Pepper, Tony, and their unborn child, had he kept silent. "At least you're alive," he reminded, unsparingly.

Tony's stony expression had been carved from ice, and even the dead man could feel the chill of it. "Am I?" His question cut with equally frigid cruelty. The violent gesture he made toward the mangled vehicle was with his broken arm, and he pushed on through his pain. "Pepper died last time. Maybe this time it's my turn. I certainly deserve it more." There were other similarities. Things he didn't want to think about.

He had a strong survival instinct. He had survived three months in a cave, and found his own means of escape. Losing Pepper would kill him, but hurting her would be a fate worse than death. "All my many sins - only one thing offered me the slightest hope of redemption. I lost her tonight. I'm gonna have to live with that, but she doesn't deserve - none of them deserve - to suffer because of my failings, and my arrogance. No, they'd have been better off in a world without Tony Stark."

Accustomed to his father's disappointment, even scorn, Tony still looked away from the curling lip and narrowing eyes that peered at him as though he were a particularly repellant species of insect. "Look at you. Things get hard and you run? Where's your infamous swagger now?"

The two men shared many traits. In life, Howard had been burdened with an assemblage of faults, not dissimilar to his son's - participating in the Manhattan Project, his alcoholism, a tendency to engross himself in his work to the exclusion of all social obligations, and the creation of thousands weapons that caused the deaths of enemies and friends, alike. Also like his son, Howard had been self-absorbed, arrogant, and cocky. Tony, however, had yet to show his father's capacity for tough love.

"You're a Stark, and you're just going to lie down and let these morons defeat you because you're feeling bad for yourself? How pathetic-"

Howard paused, his head tilting upward the way Tony's did when talking to J.A.R.V.I.S. at home. "Are you sure?" he murmured, a frown making a divot between his eyebrows. "No, I think it's ridiculous, but I don't make the rules." Sighing, he grabbed Tony by the arm and pulled him toward the embankment. "Come on."

Still seething from the lecture, Tony blinked at the abrupt change in subject, and Howard's odd behavior. He yanked his arm away. "No. I've learned my lesson about going anywhere with you. What the hell just happened?"

Giving a short laugh at Tony's choice in words, he explained, "You got your wish: you've never been born."

It was absurd, even given the circumstances, and Tony half chuckled, staring at his father to determine whether or not he was joking. A scenario like that didn't make sense, it wasn't possible - but Tony couldn't help remembering, uneasily, that he'd been in this situation before, and that what made it difficult to argue with Howard was the undeniable fact that the man was a ghost.

It was a difficult concept to wrap his head around, and Tony still felt the rock and soil as it slipped beneath his hands and feet on the way back up the hill. Tony might hover on the brink of incredulity, worrying over his father's words, but he still very much felt real, as much as part of this world as he had that morning.

"Okay. So, who am I? Who do I tell the police I am when they come to check out the accident?"

"There was no accident." Howard nodded behind them to where a pristine cluster of dead bushes lay where the car had once been. "You weren't here to cause it. You weren't in it, either – your arm and ribs aren't broken."

With creeping realization, Tony remembered he'd been using both arms to help him up the embankment. His ribs hadn't protested against their abuse during the climb, either. He tested them to confirm what he already knew, and even touched his scalp where blood had flown earlier. No wet patch, no sore spot, no clot of dried blood.

His clothes too, he noticed as they gained the highway, were pristine. No accident. Could it be true? Reflexively, he put a hand to his chest and found… nothing. Tony's blood filled with ice, and his fingers raced to the buttons of his shirt to tear it open.

"You were never in Afghanistan," Howard reminded him. "Never in that convoy, never spent three months in a cave."

No shrapnel. No Iron Man. Elation and deflation, all in the space of a second. He did up his shirt - pristine, he noticed dully - his mind numb as he considered the repercussions, the simplifications of a world without him, and even without Iron Man. Iron Man had been his life's purpose, but he had created the need for it. The loss pained Tony, but no one else would even notice. Like everything else, including loving Pepper, Iron Man was an act of pure narcissism. Everything would continue turning just fine, whether he were there, or not.

Tony looked both directions. There were no cars in sight, and Manhattan was an hour's walk. "I don't suppose you can conjure up a new car."

Howard was looking in the opposite direction of the city, glancing at a watch that Tony severely questioned the veracity of. "Our ride will be arriving in just a few moments."

Tony eyed him. Last time they'd done this, there had been a mission. Shadows of his past, and all that. "Are we on some sort of agenda?" he asked. "Now that I'm dead, am I being drafted into service or something?"

"You're not dead, and don't be so melodramatic." Howard cast him an exasperated glance. "You thought the world would be better without you in it? Now you'll have a chance to see just what sort of impact you've really made. I think it's a bad idea, personally, but greater powers than I feel that this is the best course of action."

Tony was going to comment on the existence of powers greater than his father, when headlights arced around the turn twenty miles in the distance, and Howard raised his hand. To Tony's surprise, the driver stopped, and to his greater surprise, she was a woman.

"Thank you, ma'am. My son and I had our car stolen not half an hour ago, and it's so far to the city. Would you be kind enough to give us a lift? We don't have any money to pay you, but we'd be very grateful."

She looked them over thoughtfully, making up her mind. A flash of Howard Stark's smile proved that, even as an older man, he had never lost his charm. The woman's smile flitted to life like a butterfly leaving the chrysalis. "Sure, boys. Hop on in."

Tony got in the front seat. "Thanks. I really wasn't looking forward to-" His eyes widened.

Sitting next to him was nearly unrecognizable as the proverbial feather on his camel's back - Sunset Bain.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Three**_

December 2

"_-Stark should be held responsible!"_

"_That's absurd. Bill - he didn't instigate the attacks. He's not preventing the President from retaliating."_

"_They're using his weapons, Jon! It's his weapons they've been using to kill our men and women over there. Why hasn't Stark come forward? Why hasn't he stepped up with some mea culpa, or at least condemned these heathens for their actions?"_

"_I just want to know where they got their hands on Stark Industries weaponry? He's been out of that racket for nearly four years now."_

"_It's disgusting. We've been begging, pleading, practically on our knees - not even these past six, seven, months, but since the day he stopped production - for him to reconsider, and after all that self-abasement, we still get no recognition from anyone at Stark Industries. No explanation for why he's turned his back on his own government, beyond a change of heart. Why has this injustice never been addressed? What are their motives?"_

"_You think he has ulterior motives?"_

"_Look at the facts: Supposedly, they haven't been making weapons in years. We're certainly not getting any, but now someone has some. Where did they come from?"_

"_There are any number of explanations, you can't think they're keeping quiet just to-"_

"_Keep their customers happy?"_

"…_Are you really calling Tony Stark a-"_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Four**_

_December 24 - 10am_

The Board of Directors did not at all appear surprised to have Sunset Bain, competing C.E.O. of Baintronics, in attendance at the end of quarter meeting, though some had the decency to wear their guilt like ill-fitting suits. Even sitting in the middle of the long, high-polished table, in her sherbert-colored (and completely ill-suited to the weather), dress, she commanded the attention of every eye in the room.

He hadn't seen her since he was a young man of seventeen, enough in love with the older woman that he'd proposed to her. Unsurprisingly, he'd never received an answer. Tony had foolishly entrusted her with the codes to his father's lab, and she had robbed him blind. She'd taken a lot more than research with her: Tony had lost his faith, his trust, and in nearly thirty years, he had loved only one other woman - until Pepper.

The sight of Sunset in his board room, representing the company she'd created using his father's ideas, made his skin crawl. Tony stuttered to a halt. At his side, Pepper went taut and wary - confused, until introductions were made with forced joviality, by the board president. Only her presence, and the tightening of Pepper's spine in recognition of the name, made the moment bearable for Tony. Thatagirl.

"Why is Ms. Bain here?" Pepper's voice was even, her expression enigmatic; this was her mask of impenetrability, the one she used on Tony, co-workers, business partners, and even the press. Its evocation spoke volumes, and though someone unfamiliar with her Iron Lady demeanor might simply assume Pepper was cold, President Lake's miscalculation registered wanly on his face.

Tony's displeasure, he had been prepared for. That of his titan-haired Fury of a guardian, he'd overlooked.

"When you want the best, you don't settle for less than that." Sunset poured herself out of the chair, breaking the standoff by swaying to Lake's rescue, never once sparing a glance for either Tony, or Pepper. Though her intention appeared to be reminding Lake of their purpose, Tony knew she was speaking directly to him. "When you settle for nothing but the best, you stop at nothing to get it."

Something in Pepper's lower jaw ticced. Reinforced, Lake explained that Sunset had come to him with a business proposal, and he felt that they should hear her out.

Before he even looked at Pepper, Tony knew there would be only one outcome. Without speaking, he could see in her eyes that she knew it, too. Pepper was his assistant and thus, had no power to demand an extraction. Even if she did, or if Tony did so for her, it would put her in the position she'd worked so hard to avoid - being seen as nothing more than 'Tony's girl', and a jealous one, at that. Going against the popular vote of the board, although his right, was also a bad idea, and while Tony rarely cared about things like that, with all the recent media trouble, the smart thing to do would be to hear her out.

And then throw her out.

Besides, a small part of Pepper seemed just as curious as he was to know why Sunset was here. Pepper softened with a flicker of consternation around the lips, and his own eyes flashed with resignation, but he winked at her. He wasn't going to be chased out of his own house.

He didn't want to look at the folder waiting in his place at the table, but Pepper's soft grunt of disapproval told him he had to. Tony opened the cover and he felt her eye him surreptitiously, broadcasting more with one look than words could ever convey.

She was right to worry. More than anyone, Pepper knew how Tony had been behaving lately, and this…

Tony saw her fingers flex at the hitch in his breath, read the expression of impotence in the gesture for what it was, and felt his own surge of helplessness. She shouldn't have to feel that way, not because of him. He closed the folder, pushing it away, but Pepper kept hers open and directed her attention to Sunset, her face set in marble.

"Stark Industries has an unparallelled reputation as a leader in the weapons industry - even years after transiting away from that field of interest." Till now, she'd avoided all eye contact with both Tony and Pepper, but now she met Pepper's eyes for the first time, bestowing upon her a moue of disapproval, as though it were her fault. Pepper remained impassive.

"In light of current events, Baintronics has shifted our interests to addressing the needs of our troops and the growing problem with the strength of the insurgents." The table came to life with a flood of blue illumination, and the overhead lights dimmed to compensate. A series of holographic displays came into three-dimensional being, rotating like jeweled pieces in a glass case to be viewed.

"To that end, we've designed a highly specialized series of drones, to be manually operated and monitored, and used for a variety of purposes." Tony recognized the outward appearances of the drones - they'd been designed to take the form of insects, reptiles, and other small animals native to that part of the world. Ones he remembered quite vividly and briefly, reflexively, he glanced away.

"This isn't new technology." If Sunset noticed Tony's flinch, she ignored him. "Even James Bond uses this stuff, but ours goes beyond standard espionage capabilities. At least, that's what we propose to do, in conjunction with Stark Industries."

The insectoid, mammalian, and reptilian drones flicked, lurched, and blinked to life, then converted to their proper sizes. Around them rose a tryptic of scenarios, in which a tent exploded following the intrusion of an airborne drone; an Islami leader appeared to fall victim to a terrible disease after a bad bite; and worst of all - a barely perceptible infestation of geckos in a small village not only confirmed the location of an imminent threat to the U.S. but decimated the area to stop him.

Tony could barely move.

"The last is extreme, of course." Sunset still wasn't looking at him, but continued to address him obliquely. "Largely, we intend these to be self-contained detonations, targeted to whatever we desire with little chance of harming civilians or soldiers. They could not be stolen, or corrupted, since the command center would be here, and additionally, with them, we could achieve Tony- Mr. Stark's goal of reclaiming Stark Industries' property."

Tony had long lost his ability to look at Sunset, but he surveyed the members of his board. They were impressed. Not one noticed the tension in their C.E.O.'s jaw, threatening to break his teeth, nor the tell-tale flush rising over Pepper's neck, that has always been his warning sign that he'd gone too far. Her hand was on his thigh, fingers digging into it, and Tony realized he couldn't remember when she'd placed it there; whether it it was meant in strength, or support; for her sake, or his.

For the first time since he'd entered the room, Sunset turned to look, looking only at him, eager for his reaction. Tony did not look at her. He continued, in fact, looking at Pepper. Here eyes were still fixed on Sunset.

"I've thought it through from every angle, Tony, it's a good plan. You have to see that. It'll get everyone off your back." When he didn't answer, she jutted her hip, resting it against the table, and fought the urge to fold her arms in a gesture that displayed her impatience with his refusal to simply do things her way. He knew that gesture well.

"We could do a lot of good together." The soft intimacy in her voice struck a nerve, like a discordant stroke of a violin string, and Pepper tightened her hand over his tensing muscles.

"These drones." An explosion of air from a held breath he'd been unconscious of. "They're not the end, are they? I mean, why stop there?" Reaching into the hologram, he pulled out one of the undamaged geckos and prodded it to open it up. Sunset chirped in protest, but Tony shot her an explosive look. "Why not a drone based on the suit? The government's been after me for years to do that."

Sunset's slow blink and barely restrained enthusiasm told Tony what he'd suspected - she'd been hoping for something like that. "It's not a bad idea," she said coyly. "Drones are saving lives, and I know you-"

"And when the terrorists get ahold of my tech?" He stood up, leaning across the table so violently that Sunset backed away and several board members gasped. Tony lowered his voice to almost a growl. "What about you, Sunset?" This was his first good look at her. Age had not dulled her beauty, but all he felt for her was loathing. "What happens when you get ahold of my tech?

"No," he shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I don't trust them. And I sure as hell don't trust you."

Rising, Pepper cleared her throat. "This meeting is adjourned till next month. I'll have Ms. Learner show Ms. Bain the door."

Pepper, Tony realized, had never taken her eyes off of Sunset. Not once in the entire meeting.

He remembered that later after he'd betrayed her.

_December 24 - 1:43pm_

Moving to New York had been a strategic business move, but returning to the city he'd grown up in had been revitalizing for Tony. He and Pepper had started out in this city, but coming home to it had felt like a new start. Sunset was a cloud on that horizon, a reminder of his failures in love, and in judgement.

Tony couldn't remember how he'd ended up in her apartment, or the amount of alcohol he'd consumed along the way, but he did remember his intention to tell her exactly what he thought of her, which amounted to a slurred string of unimaginative insults, delivered from an increasingly slumped position in a particularly plus chair.

"A liar, a snake - a cheating, manipulative, techno-thieving, man-eating… harridan."

"...harridan?"

"It's better than what I wanted to say." Tony sat up and his body immediately drooped heavily forward like a marionette whose strings had been cut. He caught himself with his forearms rested on his knees.

"Please, don't hold back on my account."

" 'm being… the bigger man. You wouldn't know about that."

"Ah. You mean you're doing what she would would want you to."

"No." His head wobbled in the negative. "She would call you a bitch. I called you a harridan. It's gentlemanly."

"So you think I'm a bitch?"

"No, Pepper thinks you're a bitch. Keep up."

Sunset made a moue of disapprove. A pretty, pouty expression of someone who all too often got her way and wasn't happy when she didn't. "I don't think I like this Pepper of yours."

"That's fine. She doesn't like you, either." A drink had appeared in his hand, though Tony didn't remember getting up to get it, and he could only vaguely remember Sunset moving to the bar and back to her place on the loveseat across from him.

"We've never been properly introduced," Sunset pointed out.

Tony snorted. "Pepper's like… she's classy. More class than you and me combined. Why would she want to have anything to do with a- a-"

"Bitch?"

"No, not that one. A… blood-sucking harpy, who broke my heart and tricked me into letting her steal from my father so she could start her own company?"

"Another drink?"

Tony looked down. His glass was indeed empty, and Sunset unfolded herself from the loveseat like a cat and stretched with the same graceful feline fluidity. Long-legged and lean, he had caught her in sweats and a long sleeved cotton shirt, but the fit her as elegantly as the dress she'd worn earlier. Her red hair - a darker shade than Pepper's - caught in the golden lamp light, and he noted again that Sunset had not lost any of her beauty.

"Are you going to drug it?"

She gave him a look and passed him a scotch.

Every move she made was a study in sensuality. Pepper, meanwhile, was precise and economic in most of her movements, not wasting time. In contrast to Sunset, Pepper's beauty was classic and elegant. In his youth, Tony had found Sunset stunning, and her charm had swept him of him feet. The old adage that looks were fleeting held true though, and while Sunset's beauty was still in bloom, Pepper's ran more than skin deep. Tony would not trade the one for the other at any cost.

Champagne was in his hands. It was pale pink, and he watched the bubbles for a long time before drinking the generous serving of some expensive label. Effervescence tickled his nose, and Tony tried to rub at it, but missed. Now he could not remember how much he'd had to drink since arriving.

That seemed to be happening more often. Stress over the last six months had been building, and the drinking he'd gotten under control since starting his relationship with Pepper had begun to spiral out of control again. It had been two years since he'd last spent Christmas Eve drunk, and he should be heading home to make dinner with Pepper - their fledgling tradition. He was too ashamed to be seen like this, to see in her eyes the disappointment, and to know he'd let her down.

That she deserved better.

"You seem to be doing well for yourself." He did not intend it to be a compliment, rather an accusation that she only succeeded due to the hard work of others. _'Leech',_ he thought. Another good word for her.

"Baintronics is catching up with Stark Industries." Far from appearing chagrined, she seemed proud of her achievements, and leaned closer to refill his flute.

Tony snorted, a mouthful of champagne spilled over his chin, and he wiped it away with a careless swipe of his white shirt sleeve. "Over my dead body, Sunset. I will not let a floozy without an original idea in her head overtake me. If you think you can, you're-"

"Floozy? Now I'm hurt."

"You used me to steal my father's intellectual property, right after I proposed to you. It's fitting."

Pursing her lips, Sunset peered at him thoughtfully, and refilled his glass once more. Tony drank it sullenly, ignoring what might have been hurt in her eyes, and possibly traces of regret. He wanted none of her remorse, genuine or false. He had come here only to unburden himself of the emotions he'd carried around for years following her betrayal, and to tell her off for returning to invade his space and propose an idea that picked at he scabs of old injuries, and went so entirely against everything he stood for. Revisiting his memories though, he just wanted to leave, and didn't know what he hadn't.

He drained his glass.

"...were good together, though," Sunset was saying. "Before. You always had your nose in a book, or were working with your robot. I showed you how to loosen up a bit. Have some fun."

"You aren't dissuading me from the floozy thing."

A frown deepened the faint wrinkles on her lovely face and brought others. "Don't tell me you don't remember how good it was. How good we were. I didn't know what I wanted before I met you, you grounded me. I helped you come out of that shell your parents put you in. We're where we are today because of each other, and now that we're in the same industry, we could be assets to one another, Tony."

Laughter pealed drunkenly from Tony, who fell backward, heavily, in his seat. "You've got to be kidding." He looked for the bottle - any bottle - and lurched to his feet to fetch it for himself, then stumbling back and nearly fell into the chair again. "What in the Hell makes you think I'd ever work with you on anything?"

Sunset took the bottle from him, meeting with little resistance, and poured the clear liquid into a tumbler. Probably vodka. "Are you sleeping? I can only imagine; so much pressure from the government, and in the press."

Her sincerity, and her genuine concern, shook Tony. It caught him off guard, and finding a small chink in his defences, caused him to stutter, "I'm- I'm not-"

Whatever he'd actually been saying, Sunset took it as confirmation of her fears. She pouted with concern, radiating as much empathy as any devout charity worker he'd ever met.

"It just isn't fair, what they're saying about you." She refilled his glass. "I know you'd never do anything of the sort." Sunset's hand fell lightly over his. "But you're in for a rough time ahead. You know that, don't you?"

Tony was staring at her hand, but his mind wasn't on it. He was thinking about her words, and about the future. It was going to be a rough time ahead, that was for sure. A rough time that would drag, not only himself down, but those he loved, too. He was going to hurt Pepper, no matter what choice he made, but he couldn't bear to let her go. She would, he knew, willingly face the maelstrom with him and go down with the ship if it came to that, but she deserved better. She had always deserved better.

His heavy, rubbery hand wiped sweat away from his face, and he drank again. Drank more, as long as there was something to drink, he didn't care what it was, or how many had preceded it anymore. He didn't even care what it tasted like.

Sunset's voice was low, a whisper as seductive as the words she spoke, and they enveloped him, tantalizing as rich perfume and warming as fine brandy. "I can help, Tony." 

His spine drew up, shoulders tightened. "Don't need your help. Don't want your help."

"Don't you?" Delicate fingers cradled her glass like a priceless object, betraying her finishing school education. "They're not going to leave you alone, Tony. Those vultures calling for your blood; it isn't right, but they've got you in a vice. If you don't do what they want, you'll be eaten alive."

Eyes heavy-lidded by the influence of alcohol, Tony glared at her beneath translucent hoods. "This isn't helping."

Her smile made him nervous, sly bordering on predatory. This was why they were here. "I want to help. That defense contract it's your personal sword of Damocles. Why don't you sign it over to me?" Before he could voice the violent protest that twisted his face with disgust, she stopped him with a sharp flick of the wrist. "You'd be doing your part for the good of the country - no one would be able to deny that you were acting in the best interest of your country. With so much suspicion focused on you, it makes more sense to pass on your resources to someone who is willing to do the job you won't. To even work with them, and restore faith in your name."

Tony's eyes drifted closed, letting Sunset's voice wash over him like the warm Caribbean surf, the imagery she presented heating him like the sun on his body. Her words were seductive, but impossible. Alluring only because he desired an end to his misery, and because she, with her sickeningly familiar beguilement, knew exactly what he wanted. "It wouldn't work," he protested, wishing he sounded as convinced as he felt.

"Sure it will." She was a religious leader, a missionary converting him to her faith, and when Tony dared to look at her, her reassuring smile was beatific. "We can take this burden off your shoulders, and you can return to the work you're meant to be doing. The more important things that will truly make a difference. Wouldn't it be a relief? To be able to focus?"

The room spun, chairs moving like carousel horses, taking Sunset along with them. Tony sat up, but he was fighting gravity, and rubbed at his face with useless hands. It was too much to think about, and he needed air. He needed to clear his head. He needed another drink.

Melting ice puddled on his shoe, and Tony noticed, looking down, the tumbler on the floor. Rubbing at his jaw, his face rearranged itself into a frown. "I need to think…" his head ached. Tony bent to retrieve the glass, mouth parched.

Sunset's hand intercepted his, bringing her face, briefly, within inches of his own. She smelled of oranges. He'd forgotten that. "Don't think," she urged him. Tony thought she would stay close, but Sunset pulled away and went to her briefcase, lying abandoned on a desktop, and withdrew a file.

Kneeling at Tony's feet, she pressed the documents into his hands. "I spoke with your board president, and we had these drawn up, just in case. We just want what's best for you, Tony."

He blinked at the papers, grasping for the tendrils of focus. Not only had she made it possible for him to rid himself of that burden, she'd gotten his board to agree - enough of them, at least. It was a way out, but it was a deal with the devil, desperately wanted, but sure to have unforeseen consequences.

The panic he'd been struggling with for months began tickling at his chest. Tony should say no. He should leave, should have done so long ago, and would, just as soon as he was done with his drink. He wasn't certain where it had come from.

"You want me to do this now." More than a cursory glance was too much for him to stomach, and the document drooped toward the floor, his fingers kneading the confusion from his eyes.

"And then you'll be free." It was too simple. Too easy. But Sunset, on the floor at his knees… her eyes were clear and ardent, begging his faith. He wanted to believe her. "Just think of the weight that would be lifted. Or…" Sunset hesitated, suddenly so uncertain that Tony became concerned.

She looked down, demurely. "I said before - we were good together." Pulling herself forward between Tony's legs, bracing herself with her hands on his thighs, Sunset pressed her lips to his.

It happened in slow motion: Tony saw her coming, felt her kiss, and yet could not make himself react to prevent it. He sat, stunned in shock, and though Sunset was unrestrained, his failure to respond in kind made her brief. She withdrew to study him impassively. Revulsion nearly undid Tony, held captive by Sunset's eyes, and the cool calculation that had replaced all traces of human feeling.

Leaning across to the side table, Sunset took up a pen and extended it toward Tony without a word. Undisguised disgust altered his features, but it made no difference to her. His desire to get away overrode all his sensibilities, and Tony took the pen from Sunset quickly, signing each document on the pages indicated by an arrow tag without bothering to read them.

Thrusting file and pen into her hands, Tony rose clumsily to his feet and lurched for the door like a landed sailor.

"Don't come near me again," he whispered, hand on the knob. "And don't even think of going near Pepper."

"If that's what you want." Sunset didn't sound in the least regretful.

But then - she'd gotten exactly what she wanted from him.

Tony slammed the door. He was going to be sick.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Five**_

December 16

"_Senator Stern, have formal allegations been made against Tony Stark?"_

"I think we need to examine Mr. Stark's behavior over the past three years. No one but him really knows what happened during the time he was in Afghanistan. We've been operating under the assumption that he was held hostage by the Ten Rings, based on his testimony. We've no reason to believe these stories are false, but, well, we've all seen that Homeland show. Questions have to be asked, the last thing we need is for one of the most powerful men in the world to turn out to be a double agent."

"_Are you saying Tony Stark is a traitor to the country?"_

"I think it's too early to jump to any conclusions, or make any of those kinds of accusations. Mr. Stark's history of intransigence when it comes to authority, especially the authority of this house, is disgraceful, but his unwillingness to support his country may simply be due to his boorish nature. Anything more sinister, if discovered, would, of course, be swiftly dealt with.

"_Don't you think this may all just be an over-reaction to his refusal to comply with the terms of his defense contract in the manner the Army expected?"_

"I think that if Mr. Stark has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear. And if he has nothing to fear, I don't see why he wouldn't want to do his part to defend his country in our hour of need, as others are, and many more will be. Howard Stark was a patriot, did his duty during wartime, and his contributions helped end World War II.

"_Stark can sit up there and hide behind his billions, or he can follow his daddy's example by putting his many assets to work in the only place anyone cares about, as a loyal citizen of the United States."_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Six**_

_December 24, -:-_

She wore jeans. A knit sweater the color people called eggplant, with a pocket across her belly and a hood in the back. Her hair, threaded with gray, was gathered back into an unkempt braid, pulled over one shoulder. An unshaped eyebrow gave Tony a cautiously challenging look.

"Is there a problem?"

Tony waited for the punchline; for the woman to move further into the light so that he could see that she didn't really look like Sunset, but just enough to fool him in the slanted shadows and jaundiced light of the 2000 Toyota Corolla. Howard's hand came down on his shoulder, and Tony's heart nearly stopped. His father. Right. His father must have an explanation. Tony turned to him, mouth gaping, but never got the chance to speak.

"Forgive my son his rudeness, he's had a nasty shock. It's not every day you find yourself with a couple of knives in your face."

Sunset grinned, but snorted, and Tony twitched again. It was the most inelegant sound he'd ever heard her make. "I guess that means you two've never been to prison. That's good." Casting a quick glance at Tony, who was still staring at her as though she were a biological specimen in a chemical filled jar, Sunset addressed herself to Howard. "Were they hitchhikers you picked up? Kinda ironic, don't you think? You two mostly seem alright," The 'mostly' was said with an eye shift toward Tony. "I don't tend to worry too much. I've learned a few things about taking care of myself, so-"

"Jail?" Tony finally found his voice, and the shock was apparent in his voice. "You were in prison? That… you're joking."

If Tony had been a dog who'd begun to speak, he could not have surprised Sunset more with his sudden earnest involvement in their conversation. Maybe it was his almost flattering disbelief that made her answer the impertinent question, but she did, with a hint of the smirk he knew so well, making his heart pulse.

"Five years, for corporate fraud." Even facing the road and Tony still reeling from having stepped into the Twilight Zone, he could see the guarded look in her eyes above the nonchalance she wore like a badge of pride. "Tried to steal what they call 'intellectual property' from my ex so I could start my own business. Turns out, you can sue over ideas just as easily as actual property, so - Guilty."

Her eyes moved to Howard's in the rearview mirror, but they were on Tony, who seemed to be fighting bewilderment and satisfaction at Sunset's comeuppance. "Huh." He could say nothing more than that. Tony had protected her, even after knowing she'd been the one to steal his father's property. Howard had figured out what must have happened, but Tony had never given him enough to use against her. She had manipulated him, used him, broken his heart, and worse; but he had not been able to act in vengeance, even if it was what she deserved. Who knew how many people she'd done the same to since then?

"- I'm a personal assistant now," she was saying. "It's hard to get back into it, after… but I learned some good skills while I was in there, and I work for the senator, so I think it makes him look good, having an ex-con on his staff."

Tony took in the colorful Upstate accent that gave a nasal quality to her now absent finishing school tones. He frowned, and nearly commented on her working for Senator Stern, when they came through the tunnel and the skyline of Manhattan came into view.

"Holy shit!"

The car swerved, and Sunset repeated his epithet under her breath. "What the fuck is wrong with you, are you insane?"

"What the fuck happened?"

"To what?"

"To what?" He pointed to the windshield, looking at her as though she'd begun speaking in tongues. "To the city!"

Buildings, or what had once laid claim to that term, jutted into the sky like broken teeth after a boxing match. Black char crawled across the landscape like decay, leaving the unsettling impression that it would continue to spread if left unwatched. Among some of the ruins, or in those buildings miraculously left whole, windows covered in black paper hinted at inhabitants beyond, and their wariness of illuminating the night sky. Though the sun had not yet set, Manhattan's usual sea of lights - thousands of them - were missing.

The trickle of vehicles on the road provided the only source, their head and tail lights, though guarded with makeshift hoods, kept the roads safe, for now. Otherwise, the city was not only dark, compared to the Manhattan Tony knew, it was silent.

Sunset brought the car to a stop to turn her full attention to Tony, sure it was a sick joke until she saw the horror on his face. She asked Howard. "Shit, where have you two been?"

"Just… tell me," Tony rasped. He couldn't look away from the graveyard of his hometown.

For a long time, there was no answer, and Tony could feel her staring. Frustration knotted his muscles, drawing bile into his stomach, and he might have exploded had Sunset not finally answered. "It was the attack. Six months ago, there was a drone strike. We've been at war with Afghanistan ever since."

Tony made her pull over so that he could retch bile, from the empty stomach of a man that did not exist, onto the side of the road.

Not many people went near Ground Zero unless they had to. Tony begged Sunset to take them as close as she was willing. What she was willing to do was get these increasingly strange men out of her car, whether, she said, that meant to a hospital, to the bomb site, or on the side of the road. They were just lucky she'd found Jesus, because most people-

She was cut off by Tony's bleak, but amused, laughter.

Sunset likely would have dumped them had it not been for Howard, who turned on charm his son had thought mythic, until at last they watched her taillights recede in the direction of Brooklyn.

Tony stood upon the precipice of what had once been midtown Manhattan. Currently, it could have been the set of every post-apocalyptic movie he had ever seen. Once proud buildings that had made up his everyday life were simply gone, and for blocks around, in all directions, circumstances were the same.

"This isn't on me." No streets existed in any familiar sense. They had buckled, broken, and been flung away to form standing stone monuments with angry, incomplete, ruins on them. What remained was buried beneath fallen debris, and paths that had been cleared away revealed nothing that resembled what had been lost there.

The large chain link fence, topped with boards and chicken wire, stood out like a giant silver sore thumb amid this wasteland - obviously where the drone had struck.

He needed to see it. To prove that this couldn't have anything to do with him. Sunset was one thing, he could buy that, but this?

Howard followed without offering guidance. "Stark Industries is the leading weapons manufacturer in the world – not just in quantity, but in quality."

Tony climbed the fence, but stopped short of actually going over the chicken wire. "No. Gimme your coat." He did not cause this. His existence did not stand between this, and the lives of who knew how many thousands.

"You know Stane was dealing with terrorists, only you weren't here to-"

"No."

"To shut down production-"

"Dammit-"

"And more importantly, to stop him."

"Stop!"

Using his father's jacket (like hell he'd use his own) Tony mounted and dropped to the other side of the fence and found himself standing at the edge of a gaping maw that had opened in the earth, casting shadows of hellfire to mark the drone's passage on what buildings surrounding it had not tumbled entirely to their knees in the face of so mighty an offence. Billboards, faces burned and peeling, bowed their heads from view in mournful defeat.

There were signs of recovery and cleanup. Construction equipment loomed like sleeping leviathans along cleared portions of what he could only assume was the surrounding road, though the lack of emergency vehicles told Tony that any search and rescue attempts had ceased, and all hopes for finding survivors were now lost.

Tony scoured land and sky for something to tie himself to this location, some landmark by which he could make sense of the pointless destruction around him. His feet struck something that was not another hunk of twisted detritus on the ground, and Tony bent to wrest the object free from the wreckage. It was large, and would have been large on its own, only it had been fused to two of its brethren by an intense heat. The 'P' that had drawn Tony's attention was as long as his arm; equally as long as the 'A', and the 'L'.

He did not realize what he held in his hands right away. His fingers traced the hollow shapes, and then it hit him, and Tony looked up and saw… nothing. No Palace Theater. No Doubletree, no Westin, no Times Square Building, no Roxy Delicatessen, no TKTS, not even an Olive Garden, or the M&Ms Store. All gone. In fact, he thought he recognized a Sheraton up on 59th, and maybe some boutiques on 37th.

Staring into the crevice, he asked dully, knowing his father would be there, "S.I. weapons did this?"

"Stane Industries, technically, but my designs, yes." Howard moved beside him and contemplated the damage his legacy had wrought. If he felt the same guilt over it that Tony did, it did not show. "The conflict began, much as it did in your world, only they had greater firepower."

It was a tired refrain, but Tony said it anyway. "You can get weapons anywhere."

"Yes, you can. But with Stane supplying them so readily, they're making their own money, hand over fist, brokering to other terrorists. Stane doesn't care where the money comes from, so long as they paid him. He saturated the market with a superior product, and no one found out, let alone stopped him."

This – this, was something Tony had not yet considered, and it stopped him cold. "But," he licked his lips, processing quickly. "Anyone could be supplying them. There are plenty of arms brokers."

"None that have Stark weapons." Howard smirked smugly. "It does make a difference. There's a reason Sunset came to you with her ideas, in the hopes that you'd restart weapons production."

"If you want the best, you get the best." Tony grew morose. "And you stop at nothing to get it." Sunset's maxim. He stared into the abyss, wondering if it were possible for this dark tragedy to follow him into his own world should he even think of returning.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Bomb," Howard answered grimly. "Dropped from overhead; hence the blackout. There's a curfew in place, but we've still some time. Come. There's plenty more you should see."

Tony lingered, searing the vision of what might have been, and what could be, into his memory. He never wanted to forget the potential repercussions of his errant decisions.

Following his father, they stepped carefully over the remains of the city and followed no discernable path until they finally reached a part of town that did, at last, bear resemblance to the New York of Tony's remembrance. It still bore the scars of recent injury: black flares of ashy shadows licked up the sides of buildings, some of which seemed to lean on their foundations. There were countless boarded up windows, and a few buildings, faced primarily with glass, appeared to have been denuded and re-clothed in robes of brown paper.

The pavement rippled beneath them, but they were more or less sidewalks, and Howard led Tony down them in the direction of the Financial District.

Only a few people walked the streets in the gloaming, and they moved with purpose, eager to attain their own doorsteps before the darkness enforced by the city fell upon them. Car slouched past at a pace laughably sedate for Manhattan traffic, head and tail lights still blazing beneath modified blinders intended to shield the light from aerial view. The entire procession was completely silent, and within minutes of them passing up current, Tony found them unsettling.

"This seems like an overreaction, doesn't it? Americans tend to have a John McClane reaction to these kinds of crises. This historical reenactment thing is more than a little creepy."

Howard didn't respond. Tony examined his grim expression and what he saw filled him with dread.

"This isn't an isolated incident, is it?" He stopped on the street, forcing his father to stop with him. "This has happened before."

Howard shook his head. "When New York was attacked, so were D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, and Boston. They were well-coordinated strikes using drone technology replicated, or so the media says, from one of our own they downed last year. What the government knows, but the public doesn't, is that they were bombing the U.S. with stolen American materials, although the government has been unsuccessful in tracking down the source of the contraband parts."

Tony knew what was coming next, but refused to look at his father, to have that point driven home for him yet again. It was too much for him to take.

"What the government doesn't realize, is that the snake their looking for has been right in their midst all along."

There was something gently insinuating in Howard's voice, and it rankled on Tony's nerves, because he got it. "Stane not only encouraged the war, he facilitated the bombings. He's responsible for the deaths of thousands." Maybe more. Many more than Tony carried on his conscience, but Tony was willing to bet that Obie slept soundly in his bed every night. Just as he had when he'd arranged Tony's kidnapping and murder by terrorists - and the man had practically been his uncle.

"From a purely strategic standpoint, it makes sense. You're a supplier of weapons, you need to create demand to facilitate your ability to supply. He's broadening his customer base. I'm sure on paper, this is all putting him in the plus column."

Howard agreed. "Obie is a chess player. In this game, he'll protect his king no matter who he has to sacrifice, and he'll always have a strategy."

"And he'll always be at least five moves ahead," Tony murmured. Obie had taught him chess, and they'd spent many hours together over a board. Obie's entire life model was based on the game. That meant Obie would probably get away with this. He'd have everything planned out and be prepared for every possible move with countermoves of his own. It would be next to impossible to make anything stick to him.

"Dammit." In his mind, he could see himself sitting on the couch with Obie just behind him, whispering in his ear. He was getting away again.

"This way." Tony was yanked from his memory by his father's voice, calling him toward the open doors of a church. A military truck stood out in front, a sign on it bearing the insignias of the four branches of the armed services and the words 'Induction Center'.

They were still close enough to the blast site that the effects of the impact were observable. The building's foundation had kicked up on one end, as if some giant had stepped on the opposing corner. A tree had fallen into the ancient cemetery surrounding the church, and the tombstones, bearing turn-of-the-century dates and sinking deep in their beds, were littered liberally with the debris from its taller, more vulnerable neighbors.

Though this was not a church Tony had ever found himself in at any point before now, it would have been impossible for him not to note the even greater changes that had occurred inside. As high as the arm could reach, every wall in the narthex had been covered in a palimpsest of notices, begging the locations of missing loved ones, lost pets, or honoring the dead.

No wall displayed less than one of the nation's flags and an array of posters boasting patriotic slogans, all so prominent that that they obscured and replaced any religious iconography with the overt suggestion of a new faith - that of the American Way.

This supposition was reinforced by the men and women gathered within, the largest number of people Tony had seen since waking up on the side of the road after the accident. If not actively kneeling at the altar in somber prayer, coincidentally beneath one of the flags, the worshippers paced the long lines of notices with the intense focus of one attempting to memorize their catechism.

This was a new world for them, and the dead, their saints. They had been drafted into the equivalent of a holy war, whether they saw it or not, and every one of them wore upon their breast a small golden flag pin, which caught the light of the churches ancient chandeliers just as a crucifix might.

The sound was down, but a familiar voice drew Tony's attention from a television in the corner where some of the inductees had gathered before their examination. The crawling of his skin told him all he needed to know, even before he saw Obadiah Stane on the screen.

"_...a great sacrifice for your nation. There is no man or woman more heroic than one who is willing to put aside all that he or she holds dear for the sake of his fellow man, and we, the American People, thank-"_

Tony gripped the back of the chair in front of him. He felt nauseated, and had he not been so angry, he would have thrown up at the words captioning Stane's face across the bottom of the screen.

Senator Obadiah Stane.

Senator.

Maybe he _was_ going to throw up. Tony straightened. "Sunset. She works for Stane. Is she…" he looked at the television. "Is she a part of this?" He wouldn't put it past her. Those two together… Tony remembered the letters of the Palace Theater sign and shuddered.

"For her troubles, if they're ever caught, she'll go down for it alone. Stane's made sure she never has any power."

Tony was almost tempted to feel sorry for her.

"Gentlemen," an army sergeant prowling the field for newcomers called from behind them. Upon seeing them more closely, he gave Tony a critical once-over. "You're late, son." He eyed their unadorned lapels as if verifying membership among the elite. "We could have used you last year."

He meant fit men in their prime. Or women. Not the children or elderly they'd been scraping the bottom of the barrel to bring him these days. Tony felt heat rise within him, not for his own sake, but for those dying, about to die, and being callously recruited to die, by men who treated it like an inconvenience.

Howard put a hand on Tony's arm and said, "He's an inventor; he's been working for Senator Stane for the war effort. We both have. You want to question his orders, you can take it up with the Senator." He paused. "You have a problem with that?"

There were any number of colorful responses Tony would have accepted from a New Yorker spoken to that way, even one wearing military fatigues. What he didn't expect was the posture-straightening respect and glint of hero-worship in the man's eye, for a man who'd never even served in Vietnam.

"No, sir. Sorry, sir." The sergeant practically snapped to attention and buried his nose in his clipboard. "Names?"

"Potts." Tony was surprised at how easily the lie had risen to his lips, as though there were no other name for him to consider. A first name, while not quite necessary, occurred to him a moment or so later. "Harold." Happy's birth name.

His father gave him a look of subtle amusement, but gave the name Howard Potts, either for reasons of familial solidarity, or in mockery. Tony was leaning toward the latter.

"Why exactly are we here?" Tony asked in frustration. His father hadn't told him anything. "That can't be it – the war? Sunset? I care about New York, but-"

"I thought you'd like to see a friend. See how he would have turned out without your influence."

It did not take a man of Tony's intellect to guess of whom Howard was speaking. There was only one military officer Tony had any close ties with, and earlier that evening, Tony had told him to fuck off.

"Where is he?" Tony asked quietly, almost hesitantly. "How do we see him?" He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to, after Sunset. After Manhattan. Rhodey would be right in the middle of all this. Tony had fought with him just that afternoon, and now he wanted nothing more that to take everything he'd said back. "What happened to him?"

Howard silence indicated that he seemed to be considering his answer carefully, though his response, when it came, appeared simple enough to Tony. "Colonel Rhodes is commander of the 18th training wing at Sampson Air Force Base on Lake Senaca – recently reopened because of the war."

It seemed better than he'd thought, and Tony took the information much like one would take the news that an old lover had recently married, both pleased, and remorseful. "So he's doing well for himself? That's good. Better than when I-"

"Potts! Harold! Howard! This way, please!" The smart mouthed sergeant from before ushered them through a pair of double doors bearing stained glass angels in mirrored profile. A hallway of what Tony supposed were classrooms or offices stretched before them, with soldiers and civilian men and women transiting between them like industrious ants, hard at labor.

"Potts, Harold – you're in Exam Room one – Potts, Howard – you're in Two. After that, you'll take your reports to Interview Rooms One and Two on the opposite side of the corridor, it's real simple. Once you're done in there, go into the next room down the line – Potts, Howard, when you're done in Four, go back to One to finish off. Got it?"

Tony nodded, but stole a look at his father. Were they really going through with this? Howard ignored him, so Tony reluctantly followed the sergeant's orders, facing his physical behind the door of Exam Room One with grim faced forbearance.

Fortunately, it was quick. The mass hysteria the attacks seemed to have engendered, and the desperation of the draft, had lowered the standards for fitness requirements, Tony found. He had all his limbs, no respiration or (laughably) heart problems, no other serious medical conditions, and – as determined by a ridiculous exam, administered by a woefully unqualified M.D. – was mentally sound.

Crossing the hall to the appropriate Interview Room, Tony noted the insignia of the U.S. Air Force affixed to the door and logically assumed that he'd be meeting with representatives from each branch of the armed forces for recruitment.

He had opened the door before realizing who would be on the other side of it, and cursed his lack of foresight, and the loss of time to prepare. His feet nearly turned him back out of the door, but Tony stood there, in the designer suit he'd been wearing since the board meeting that morning, which felt like a lifetime ago, and waited for his best friend to notice him.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Seven**_

_December 24 - 4:18pm_

"Man, you know my opinion on this."

Rhodey wouldn't look at him, but it was obvious the lieutenant was monitoring every glass of blessedly numbing scotch Tony could get out of him. Till now, Tony would have sworn that he had his drinking under control, but from the side-eyeing he'd noticed, it was apparent no one believed him. After tonight, he didn't believe it either.

"I don't know why you even bothered to come to me."

Rubbing his eyes, Tony tried to decide if the pounding in his head was at all improved by the dubious comfort of Rhodey's couch. "Because you're the only one who knows what that soul-sucking she-demon is capable of, first hand. They have no idea what they're in for."

"Yeah, she's trouble," Rhodey muttered. Rhodey had been there through round one with Sunset Bain, and he knew the depths to which she was willing to stoop. "I'm not gonna say she doesn't have a point though, Tone. If the shit hits the fan, one man in a suit isn't gonna be enough. People are dying already."

Reflexively, Tony's shoulders hunched protectively around his ears, and he rolled forward, elbows on his knees. It had started small. So small, he'd barely noticed. A word here and there on the news about activity in the Middle East. Then words he'd had J.A.R.V.I.S. flag caught his attention: Ten Rings, Afghanistan, Stark Industries, his own name. By the time the suggestion of weapons had arisen, the nightmares had become a nightly occurrence, and when his patriotism came into question, his P.T.S.D. plagued him unceasingly. His inability to turn off the news had led to near isolation, constantly clammy skin, and a worm in his gut there wasn't enough tequila in the world to drown.

"It's gonna have to be," he grunted.

He'd hidden it well, except from Pepper. Rhodey knew Tony wasn't well, but if he noticed his friend's distress now, he kept pushing. "You know I've supported you these last three years. I could have lost my job, but I stood up to generals, senators, you name it. Nobody was happy about that mess with the defense contract."

"You stood up for me?" Tony breathed asthmatically, unable to stop the pounding in his chest from blossoming. _That mess with the defense contract, oh God._ He tried to push himself to his feet, but nearly fell to the floor. "You rode my ass from here to Malibu and back every time I saw you, Platypus."

"Rode nothing, I covered my ass, and that was nothing compared to what they put me-"

"Poor baby." Tony's face twisted into a sneer. "It must have been so hard for you after I came home."

Rhodey was quiet; unapologetic, and as somber as someone delivering a eulogy. "They're calling you a traitor, Tone."

An image of Pepper appeared in Tony's mind, soft and glowing in the moonlight beneath him, her eyes hooded but glistening with pleasure, and looking at him with-

Tony lunged for the trashcan and emptied his stomach of the day's entirely liquid diet. He was shaking, and closed his eyes to hold back what might have been tears.

Misinterpreting Tony's reaction, Rhodey said, "The Army wants to know how those insurgents got ahold of weapons you haven't been making for three years?"

Wiping his mouth on his arm, Tony crawled, pulling himself up on a chair, and looked for the bottle. Ten steps to the bar, but Rhodey got their first and yanked it away. "They were obviously stockpiled in a cave somewhere by the Ten Rings!" Tony exploded. "It's the only remotely logical explanation, because I sure as Hell-"

"For three years? You're saying those guns and missiles and everything could have sat in some cave, in a country in the middle of a civil war, for three year, without anyone finding them, and come out the way they are? You gotta see how hard that is to believe, man."

Tony needed a drink more than ever, but he stared at his best friend, bile crawling into his throat that had nothing to do with intoxication. "Tell me you don't believe it."

Rhodey paused. For three seconds, he just stared at Tony as if weighing meat in a butcher shop. "No," he decided, shoulders relaxing.

But he'd thought about it.

Tony should have been angry, but what he felt was pain.

The punch was sloppy, misdirected by too much booze, and succeeded only in knocking Rhodey to the floor. It didn't make Tony feel better, either.

He did manage to collect the bottle of scotch, and a bottle of vodka, besides, and teetered as he stood over Rhodey. "If you'd even think I'd put weapons into the hands of the bastards who tortured me, than you don't know me at all," he growled.

Hand pressed to his jaw, Rhodey struggled to rise. "Tony-"

"No." Tony wheeled around from his stumble for the door. "No, I cut ties with the government because I couldn't trust them. Not with the arc reactor, not with Iron Man, and apparently not with you."

Rhodey's voice stopped him in the doorway. He didn't turn around. "It's not just about you, Tone. I back you all these years, disobeying orders, bucking protocol, and now they accuse you of treason? We could both go to prison - Hell, worse than that, and if the lives of thou-"

"Fuck you."

He sat in his car and drank.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Eight**_

_December 24, -:-_

Colonel James Rhodes did not resemble Rhodey as Tony remembered him. Determined not to stare, Tony might not have noticed were it not for the head of astonishingly salt and pepper hair. After that, Tony couldn't look away. Rhodey's cheekbones were as sharp as flint. His uniform hung limply on his frame, giving him the air of a boy playing dress up. Worst of all, his hands trembled slightly as he made notes from the file he held up so that he could see.

Then Tony noticed his eyes.

"Have a seat," Colonel Rhodes invited mildly, lacking the confident tenor Tony knew. This man sounded distracted, and as though he were concerned about disturbing the neighbors.

He set aside the notes from his last interview and when looked up, Tony half expected to see recognition animate his face, but it didn't. The colonel, reach for Tony's file and gave it a cursory glance.

Those eyes. They haunted Tony, and he couldn't stop watching them over the top of the manila folder. He knew exactly what hid behind the wall he saw there, as clearly as though they were his own. That too-wide stare, the emotionless gaze.. He was recently back from the war, and – Tony looked at his hands more closely – yes, scars. Dammit. He'd been taken captive, too - only Rhodes hadn't yet taught himself to fake it. To hide from the world the damage inflicted, not physically, but mentally

"Excellent condition. Better than most. Have you ever considered a career in the Air Force, Mr… Potts?" He spoke in a murmur, and didn't look up until he absolutely had to.

Instead of answering, Tony asked him, "What was it like? When you were there?"

He could see, in the uncomfortable twist of Rhodes' body in his chair, unconsciously trying to escape the question. He wasn't accustomed to the potential recruits questioning him, and probably wasn't used to discussing his tour of duty at all.

"I was just happy to serve my country," he demurred.

"That isn't what I asked," Tony pressed.

A long silence passed between them, during which Tony was certain Rhodes was both trying to find a way to avoid answering, and weighing the benefits of doing so.

At last, he exhaled heavily. "You'd know I was lying if I told you it was a walk in the park. It wasn't. It's dangerous, and at times, downright terrifying. What makes it tolerable is that you're fighting for something that matters, and that you're not doing it alone. You fight with your Wing, you train with your Wing, and as long as you stick to the book, things generally go fine."

By the book. Tony gaped. When they had first met, Tony had not made friends easily, preferring to work on his inventions, and spent a lot of time in self study. People didn't think the way he did, and he didn't think the way they did. Rhodey had been the one to help him over that hurdle, young as he was, until Sunset came along. In return, Tony had forced Rhodey to take chances; to be a little spontaneous; to trust his gut.

To not always go by the book.

Tony's eyes flicked down to the mottled scar tissue on Rhodey's trembling hands. He almost hated to do it. "Is that what happened?" he asked. "You stuck to the book?"

Rhodes' hands curled into weak approximations of fists, not in anger, but in self-defense, and he pulled them closer to his body. Tony watched to see if he would hide them in his lap, but the colonel refrained. Glad to note the confrontational fire in Rhodes' eyes, Tony held them without challenge, but without backing down from the question.

"I think this conversation is over, Mr. Potts." Rhodes shut his file.

"Did you crash? Were you captured? How long did they hold you?" A cold rush of anxiety swept through Tony, and it wasn't just about finding answers anymore, it was about his friend, about finding out what had happened, because Tony knew what it meant to be held hostage.

"You need to leave. Now." Rhodes stood and made to go around the desk toward the door.

Tony leapt to his feet. "Wait, Rhodey-"

The colonel stopped. Pivoting slowly on his heel, Rhodes looked at Tony more clearly than he had since Tony had come into the room.

Tony had made a mistake.

"I haven't heard that name since college." He searched Tony's face for some sign of recognition, tension still in every muscle in his body. "Do I know you?"

It took Tony a long time to answer. What was there to say? "Not anymore."

As far as answers went, it was cryptic, and did not satisfy Rhodes' curiosity.

"You go to M.I.T.?"

Slowly, Tony nodded.

"Smart guy."

The way Rhodes said it, Tony wasn't sure if it was a compliment or not.

The colonel's hand twitched a fraction of an inch closer to his sidearm, like a clockwork toy running low. "What else do you know about me?" Tony could now hear paranoia beginning to underlay Rhodes words that had not been there earlier. Demons Tony knew only too well were coming to the fore in the colonel's mind, and if they were anything like the ones Tony fought so hard to ignore, they would make Rhodes erratic and dangerous.

"I know that you're too good to be stuck here pushing papers," Tony said, searching for a calm he did not feel, watching his friend struggle against pain he fought more frequently than anyone would ever know, even Pepper. "You're one of the best pilots in the whole damn Air Force, what the hell happened that you-" Tony saw it. In a brief, unguarded moment as Rhodey's dark eyes cleared in reaction to his words, Tony saw the answer to his question and his mouth dropped in surprised dismay.

"Oh, Rhodey. Not you, man." He had no confidence. Rhodey, one of the only people who regularly stood up to Tony; who stood up _for_ Tony against the entire military; who had flown the War Machine armor into battle. His lack of confidence, and over-reliance on the rulebook, had ruined his career.

The disappointment writ large on Tony's face must have been worse than any expression of pity could have been, and equally as confusing, coming from a virtual stranger. Rhodes' nostrils flared and his eyes were suns in his head, radiating his anger. He'd expected the paranoia, but not the escalation that immediately followed.

"You weren't at M.I.T. I'd remember you. Are you a spy? Working with Them?" The 'T' was clearly capitalized, and Tony noted that yet again, he was being accused of conspiracy and treason, and in a different world no less.

"I'm not a spy," he practically rolled his eyes. "I just know you. I know you love Aston Martins, because of James Bond. I know you'll drink Pabst Blue Ribbon, unless you have company, then it's Sierra Nevada. I know you like anchovies on your pizza, your parents are Nora and Samuel…" he looked around, eyes settling on the desk. "And I'd bet money that there's a stash of Kit Kat minis in the top drawer that no one knows about."

Rhodes had gone still; so still, in fact, that he appeared to have stopped breathing.

"You didn't tell them any of that, did you?"

When he didn't answer, Tony felt his stomach drop. "Please tell me they didn't-"

"No." The word left him in a rush, like air escaping a balloon. "No, I didn't tell them that. I didn't tell them anything." Nearly all black eyes dared Tony to challenge him, but Tony didn't have to. He could see in every aspect of Rhodes' bearing that he had broken. He had given them all they had asked for, and probably more – so much, he didn't even remember, the mind providing him with a necessary shield to protect him from the horror of whatever he'd been through.

Tony knew what he'd been through. How had he endured where Rhodes had not? It couldn't be as simple a factor as Tony's influence. "You survived."

The words, or something Rhodes saw in Tony's face, twisted Rhodes features into a mask of pure hatred, and he wrenched the door behind him open, shouting down the corridor, "I need a hand here! Captain!"

Tony hurried forward, but the hand on the butt of Rhodes' gun was steadier now as he whirled around, and Tony raised his hands and halted six feet away. "I told you, I'm not the enemy. I'm a friend. You shouldn't be here."

Broad shoulders and the personification of Justice filled the doorway, and Tony faltered. Steve Rogers stared at him with a look Tony knew intimately, and had never found himself concerned with until this moment.

"This would not be a good time for a crack about the spangles, would it?" The joke was out before he could stop it, and he could have swore that Steve actually looked a little hurt.

"What's the problem, Colonel?" Rogers' voice was as reasonable and commanding as always. The man had been chosen, and then built, to lead armies, and Tony couldn't help finding that slightly mechanical quality just a little bit irritating. Even his 'bots were more natural. Of course, the man was also his friend, so you took the good with the bad.

Those were the facts of life.

Rhodes didn't take his eyes off of Tony. "I have reason to believe this man is a spy."

Rogers turned his attention to Tony, who was willing to swear he was giving him an opportunity to speak in his own defense. "Not a spy. I know Colonel Rhodes, his talents are wasted here."

"I don't know this man. I don't know how he knows about me." Tony noticed Rhodes avoided revealing that Tony had any information that could have been obtained from Rhodes under torture.

Following their conversation intently, Rogers asked the significant question: "How do you know the colonel, Mr…?"

"Potts, and we both went to M.I.T." Not a lie, though if they did a background check on Harold Potts, they'd find nothing. Where was his father?

"Do you know why Colonel Rhodes would say he doesn't know you?"

This required a moment of careful consideration, and finally, Tony said, "Hey, sometimes when you've been through something traumatic, it takes a little time to get all the parts running again. I heard you struggled with it a little, too - although that was different, since almost everyone you knew was dead. Also that friend of yours who wears too much Maybelline."

It was exactly the wrong thing to say. Tony knew it the moment the words escaped his lips, even before he saw the shock on Steve's face. Rhodes, stunned, simply stepped aside to allow Rogers a clear path as he took Tony's arm and directed him into the hallway.

"How do you know?" he echoed the question that had been put to Tony more than once that night. "About the Winter Soldier?"

Tony's body slumped in a physical sigh and went for the truth. "I know because I've worked with all of you. Fury, Romanov, Barton, Banner, Thor – Agents Coulson and Hill; you just don't remember."

In the world they worked in, it was entirely plausible. It was a scenario someone like Steve Rogers, Captain America, would at least consider. Instead, he lifted Tony off his feet and slammed him against the wall, hard enough that Tony heard the plaster crack. "Fury was murdered one year ago, trying to prevent the bombings. No one believed they were coming but him. Natalia Romanova, if that's who you mean, is a Russian spy, former KGB, still at large; Barton was blinded trying to bring her in. The army tracked and killed Banner four months ago after he refused to work with the military – and the only Thor I've heard of is a myth. I don't know Coulson or Hill, but if you mean S.H.I.E.L.D., it was disbanded after the attack. Most of the former agents are probably in Afghanistan.

"I don't know who you are, but mentioning even one of those names earns you a trip to Fort Hamilton for a meeting with some people who'll want to ask you a few questions. You go quietly, there won't be any trouble. If not, I'll get a little angry."

Stunned, Tony still raised a sardonic eyebrow. "And I wouldn't like you when you're angry?"

Steve stared at him in confusion, heavily laden with suspicion. "What?"

His heart ached. The callousness of Roger's regard for those Tony considered their friends felt like a bucket of cold water against his skin. Tony just shook his head, answering only, "Nothing."

But no, it wasn't 'nothing'. Not when it came to Banner, who had been murdered, not just because he was different, like the Captain, but because unlike the Captain, he was unpredictable, and they couldn't convince him to bring his unique skills, such as they were, to their reindeer games.

"He was just like you," Tony observed as he was suddenly airborne under Steve's mistreatment. Rogers ignored Tony, marching him at a clip that Tony almost had trouble keeping up with. "Only he didn't choose to be the way he was, that was done to him. Bruce was a good man."

"He was a monster," Rogers spat. "A danger to anyone and anything in his path."

"Yeah, I guess that would justify turning a man into weapon, wouldn't it, Captain?" Steve paused, swiveled his head to Tony, and Tony was certain he saw a flicker of remorse before anger replaced it. "That's what the Super Soldier program was all about, right? Human weapons? Looks like they've got you-"

The punch was so fast. If he hadn't been anticipating it, counting on it, Steve might have broken his jaw. Popping his head down with all the urgency of a small mammal in avoidance of a predator, Tony let the force of Steve's blow carry him forward and send his fist splintering through what Tony had correctly judged to be shoddily constructed walls.

There was a whine, and a shriek of metal, and Tony's mouth dropped open in a surprised grin. "Huh. It worked." Rogers attempted to pull his fist from the wall with quick jerky movements, and Tony stood to his full height, leaning against the wall just far enough away that he was beyond the Captain reach. "You probably don't want to be doing that." Steve's response was a scathing look that clearly indicated he didn't care much what Tony believed he should or should not being doing. Tony sighed, and rapped on the thin plasterboard with his knuckles. The space beneath sounded hollow, but for a deeper feedback that indicated something occupying the space.

"Those are pipes. I'm guessing plumbing, but could be gas. Muscle your way out of there, the Historical Society is going to want some answers."

"You hold it right there."

"You know, I'd love to?" Tony backed away down the hall. Other people were still crossing back and forth between rooms, but none of them could seem to figure out what was going on, and merely cast furtive glances in the direction of the two men, or stopped to openly watch their confrontation. _'The defenders of the nation',_ Tony thought wryly. "The hospitality's been great, but I've gotta jet. Hey, Mavrick." Tony smacked a boy – too young to be called a man – in the stomach. "Keep an eye on this guy, alright? Make sure he doesn't break anything. He's a war hero, you know. A goddamn national treasure."

Just his luck, the lemmings responded to his words _en masse_, and turned their worshipful eyes upon Steve as though he were a living relic. Tony turned and ran, just in time for Steve's voice to rise behind him, barking orders and rallying the troops into action. Tony had to move.

More doors lined every corridor, all of them of the same shoddy, identical, craftsmanship of the first. There was no way to tell, other than looking within them, what lay beyond each medicinal yellow panel. Getting trapped inside a windowless room would only be prolonging the inevitable.

The hallway flowed down and emptied into the vast ocean of the chapel. Deceptively small on the outside, the church could have easily accommodated up to six hundred worshipers before its altar on Sundays, sat shoulder to shoulder. It was a breath-taking work of architectural splendor, with vaulted ceilings, exposed beams, and clearstory windows, all hidden from view like a pearl within wood and stone.

There was no time to marvel, not when noises behind him told Tony that Steve was free and would be following him all too soon. With no practical place to go but the altar, Tony plunged ahead, searching for a means of escape, ignoring the obvious symbolism in his search for sanctuary in this place, never mind on a night when his life quite literally lay in the hands of the angels. Or whatever his father happened to be, he wasn't clear on that fact.

There was a room behind the altar with no other exit. Otherwise… Tony thought hard. He had never been a religious man, just as his father had not, relying only on the gods of science to guide their minds and hands in all their endeavors. His mother though… Tony's mother had been Catholic. She had ensured that her son attend at least a few cursory services, enough to grant him the ability to decide for himself to which religion he would cleave.

His choice was not in question, but his memory – that was another story. Something had become fixed in his mind and, as he could not hear Steve Rogers coming any nearer from beyond the hall door, Tony stopped to concentrate.

The tombstones. Sinking. Tony looked at the floor.

Eyes raked the length of the chapel to the point at which he stood upon the altar, and a cry of triumph escaped him. There was, he was certain, an undercroft here. The church of his childhood, his mother's place of worship, had made use of theirs, for meetings, activities, and day care. Basements in New York were practically unheard of, and in a church like this, would be considered dangerous for public use. But he just bet…

It took exactly two tense minutes of crawling on his hands and knees before he found the trapdoor in the stage, a hairline crack with two holes that looked like tiny careless gouge marks to the unobservant. Another minute was devoted to finding the key in the little room behind the altar, and then he was in, out, and the door slid into place over his head not a minute too soon, as the door to the chapel slammed open and voices filled the room.

Belatedly, Tony realized he had nothing in his pockets. No phone, no flashlight, not even the arc reactor on his chest to alleviate the darkness. He waited, letting his eyes adjust, and realized there was some light to be had. Half covered with dirt from the outside, a window filtered in the light from a streetlamp, and the moon beyond. Tony hoped it wasn't blocked.

It wiggled free, and he pulled himself through, toeing the pane back into place behind him.

"If it takes you that long to fight someone you know, I'd hate to see what you're doing against that Doom fellow, or those other costumed characters."

Tony's heart nearly stopped, a sensation he was familiar with, until he realized it was his father standing beside him. "I didn't exactly see you helping. Where the hell were you?"

"This is your trip, I'm just the tour guide." Howard looked completely unconcerned. "And people who need help, generally ask for help, son."

Voices, now from outside the church. "Yeah, well, we can talk about that after we're not getting caught by Fredrick from the Sound of Music. This way."

Cutting through the graveyard, an alley cut behind the next group of businesses and Tony hurried down the row until he found what he was looking for – an open gate, with what he took to be an employee all but smothered in a plush navy blue coat and matching ski cap, depositing numerous trash bags into a large receptacle.

"Did you learn anything?" Howard made only an obligatory attempt at whispering, earning a scowl from his son.

"That war changes people." This was not, he knew, a particularly original sentiment, but the alterations in Rhodey and Steve had unsettled him on a deeply painful level.

Howard overlooked the obtuse statement in favor of the obtuse behavior. "So you don't believe you've had any affect on your friends' current conditions?"

'_By the book.'_ Tony shook it out of his mind. "Maybe I didn't prevent the war." He was growing agitated. "But Rhodey's a good pilot, he always has been, with or without me."

"Too good."

Howard let that hang there, and Tony chewed it over. "First time I flew, it was to save my life. Second time – it was like having sex."

Howard made a face, but nodded his understanding. "Rhodey flew like he was meeting the parents. He was in love, he did everything right, but he never – he didn't push dad's buttons, you know?"

"I think I might have some understanding," Howard said wryly.

"I pushed him. Challenged him. He'd be exhilarated. Still an ass-kisser, but with a wild streak no one expected."

Steve – Steve was just a victim of circumstance. They all were. Tony was the linchpin of the Avengers, and without him, there was no Avengers. With the war, they were all just weapons.

Tony crept around the fence, staying out of the light and away from the dumpsters, heading toward the open door. The clang of metal made by the trash as the puffy coated employee continued dumping bags, was deafening, and both men made it inside without drawing attention.

The corridors were deserted, but it was late. Tony still kept his voice down, looking for signs of life as he passed through grey carpeted hallways with mint green walls that made him feel slightly ill. In an adjoining hall, the skeletal figure of medical equipment answered his question – this was some sort of medical facility. Likely, there were patients on the other side of the doors they passed.

"They were changed," he reiterated, but thinking of they way they'd behaved. The men he knew weren't like that. Had that been his doing, or the war? Anticipating a war in their own world, this concerned him. He couldn't believe Steve would think killing Bruce acceptable, for the greater good, but what if he did? He couldn't bare the thought of Rhodey suffering the same hell he did, but it was more than possible.

If that were the case, Tony was sure he'd rather not-

A woman in nurse's whites appeared at the end of the hall, and Tony slid back, silent as a ghost, along the wall to his left and grasped the nearest doorknob. It turned in his hand, and he pulled his father inside after him. He listened, ear pressed against the door, until he was certain they hadn't been noticed, before exhaling in relief.

"Who's your dad-" He turned to Howard with a grin, and for the first time, noticed the room behind him.

It was a bedroom. A single bed, flanked by a nightstand and lamp, with two plush chairs to one side. A closet stood to the right of the door, and a dresser to the left, and what Tony presumed was a bathroom beyond. Altogether, it was a cozy room, were it not for the patient lying in the bed.

He was hooked up to the usual monitors: heart, blood pressure, so on. An I.V. drip provided him with what Tony figured were nutrients, given the man's vacant stare. His head was vaguely misshapen by a depression in his temple around which his hairline receded, and a crooked nose indicated that the guy had been in more than his share of fights. The television was on, and though he was propped up by pillows, Tony was pretty sure it was an empty gesture of goodwill, intended to make someone happ-

Tony frowned and moved closer. The eyes. Again, it was in the eyes. Though his were without animation, Tony knew them. He scanned the face more closely, and recognized the jaw beneath two days worth of stubble, and the mouth, though it drooled without attendance.

"No," Tony moaned.

He couldn't bear to draw closer. Only hours ago, he had fired this man. One of his closest friends.

Happy.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Nine**_

December 21

"_Ms. Potts is a longtime associate of Mr. Stark, even before their dubiously appropriate personal relationship. While she seems to have had a taming influence on him, at least in some respects, one has to question whether he has had a beneficial influence on her. If it is determined that Mr. Stark is culpable of any wrong-doing against this great nation for his unwillingness to provide support during this time of war, then it only stands to reason that his closest companion, both in business and in romantic endeavors, should be looked at as a person of interest, too." _

_~ Senator Stern, in response to queries regarding the possible involvement of Virginia "Pepper Potts" in the Tony Stark investigation._

"_If the Senator, or anyone else, has any doubts about my loyalty – or for that matter, that of my employer – I would offer them two options. The first would be to review the many contributions Stark Industries has made in support of our country, the military, the government, and in support of many charitable and civic functions. We do not have to be a manufacturer of arms to protect and serve, and any general will agree that our work has improved the lives and efforts of their brave men and women, not to mention the country. Should this not satisfy, I can thereafter recommend a suitable location where you might find an appropriate place to store any further accusations aimed at either myself, or Mr. Stark."_

_~ Virginia "Pepper" Potts, in response to Senator Stern's allegations that she may be party to Tony Stark's alleged treasonous acts._


	10. Chapter 10

_**Iron Man - It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter 10**_

_December 24 - 6:07pm_

One erratic drive in Manhattan is the same is any other, but though Tony was out of practice, he had years of experience navigating the city's traffic while intoxicated, and eventually wended his way home. The garage was his own, so it didn't matter if he slid haphazardly across the available spaces to stop at an acute angle that nearly brought him into contact with the Aston Martin.

Spilling out of the Audi onto the floor, Tony laughed in self-loathing. He hadn't felt like this since his birthday thirteen years ago. That had ended with him coming out of a drunken stupor in a hotel room in Cabo two days later, accompanied by five unknown women, no idea how he'd gotten there, and his cell phone frantically announcing Pepper's ongoing search efforts.

Those days had been so much simpler. He crawled toward the fender of a nearby mustang and used it to help himself stand. Messy, but they required far less from him in the way of being an adult and having to deal with things that were too petty or troublesome for him to be bothered with.

Tony stumbled across the floor, landing with a hard slap, hands flat against the polished steel of the elevator door. A blind thumb stabbed in the direction of the call button, brought an immediate ping of the signal bell and the doors parted so that he could tumble safely inside. The icons on the wall panel blurred together sickeningly, and Tony braced himself with one shoulder against the way to get his bearings, then poked at the glowing 'W', and slumped back again.

After a shotgun ride up more than ninety floors that did unpleasant things to his stomach, the elevator hung, vibrating, like a suspended breath.

"_Please provide access verification."_

"Uh…" Tony swore under his breath. He knew seventy-two digits of pi, but he couldn't remember today's- pie sounded fantastic, maybe Pepper could- Pepper.

"_Access-"_

"1227-514-103-930-1225" Her birthday, her hire date, the day he promoted her, the day he first knew he loved her, and the day she agreed to love him back. A lot of his access codes revolved around her, but today the affectionate gesture only reminded him that he'd failed her, and in failing her, would lose the best thing to have ever come into his life.

J.A.R.V.I.S. affirmed his clearance and granted him admittance, welcoming him by name in clipped accented tones as the lights within the lab blinked on the moment the elevator opened. Tony lunged to the nearest bench and used heavy fingers to pry at the buttons on his jacket. Failing that, he left the offending garment on, and shoved past the workstation to the horseshoe desk, and the chair behind it. It spun beneath his weight; Tony heaved a wearied sigh and pressed his fingers against the sides of his nose in an attempt to still the pounding that was now establishing a steady percussive rhythm.

"_You appear to be well-oiled, sir."_

Tony snorted with laughter that lasted more than a minute. "Well-oiled," he agreed with a giggle.

"_Shall I alert Ms. Potts to your return?"_

"No." The humor dried up quickly, and Tony sunk back into his regrets as thoughts of Sunset, and what he'd done, returned full force. "No, don't disturb Pepper."

Soon enough he'd have to confess everything. He'd have to tell her about the kiss. Tony hadn't instigated it, returned it, or even enjoyed it, but he had been there, and he had let it happen. Parents told their children to make good choices, to not put themselves in the path of temptation. Tony didn't believe in the devil, but if he existed, Tony had danced a hair's breath beyond his reach for most of his life, wallowing in sin without quite getting his clothes caught on Old Scratch's fingernails.

Pepper was his angel. She was his salvation. Tony didn't kid himself that he was anywhere near as good as she deserved, but she made him better, and he did his best to make her happy, in return. Tonight, he could feel the claws digging into his flesh, and hear the mocking chortle of something whose breath was deep and hot, close against his neck.

He had strayed, and Sunset's kiss was just one in a long list of his sins. His over-indulgence in the bottle, his increasing failure to take a stand and face the media, the government, his own company; protecting his own people – this was not who he was. This was not Tony Stark.

He could see it in her eyes, the disappointment. The frustration, as she fielded questions and dealt with issues he should have been tackling. Crippled by his own post-traumatic stress and fear, Tony could do nothing but stay tucked up in his lab and watch on television, knowing that she understood, but wishing she didn't. Would she be as understanding about Sunset? He hadn't even begun to wonder what she would think about him signing over the defense contract.

Closing his eyes and letting the champagne rock him away on a gently rolling sea, Tony tried to find some sense of satisfaction in his freedom from that one burden at least. Sunset, with her siren-song, had been right about one thing: the defense contract had been a thorn in his side ever since he'd returned from Afghanistan and found himself still beholden to it, in spite of his best intentions. He _wanted_ to be rid of it, and yet his soul - if he had one - was in tumult.

He must have drifted, the moroseness of his thoughts a dark escort into feathery dreams that left him anxious, and his chest tight, when he woke to J.A.R.V.I.S.' voice.

"_Sir, I believe there's… something on the news you must see."_

Tony had been hearing that often lately. "Not interested," he muttered, turning sideways in his chair to get more comfortable.

"_Sir – I must insist."_

The image screen came on, and to Tony's shock, Sunset stood before the front doors of Stark Industries, the President of the Board of Directors behind her.

"_-In a stunning move, owner of Stark Industries, Tony Stark, has signed over the majority share of his stock to competitor, Sunset Bain, owner and C.E.O. of Baintronics. This makes her the new majority shareholder, and with 49% of its shares, this gives Ms. Bain significant control over the daily workings of Stark Industries. Underscoring this, Mr. Stark has also signed documents passing the infamous defense contract into her hands. What effect this will have on the rumors currently looming over him is unclear, but one thing we can say, is that Ms. Bain has promised to return Stark Industries to weapons production immediately. Still no word from Tony Stark himself, and officials have expressed their intentions to meet with him at the earliest possible moment."_

Tony jerked to his feet and stumbled, nearly falling, toward the work sink, just in time to purge himself for the second time that night. Hyperventilating, he hung over the basin, mouth gaping as he sucked deep lungfuls of air in to quell the anxiety rising, prickling along his spine and through his extremities. He couldn't see the drain, couldn't see anything, could feel nothing but the panic swelling in his chest until he worried his heart might explode.

Slumping to the floor, Tony was still breathing hard, and he curled into a ball. She'd done it again. Goddamn, that bitch had done it again, and he'd fallen for it. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to find a place of calm, the way he did when nightmares of dark, stifling caves; pain; and the sensation of drowning woke him in the night.

_Pepper_. A deeper, stiller breath, and then another. Better.

"_Shall I inform Ms. Potts abou-"_

"No!" She may have been his calming thought, but her finding out about this before he was ready was the least calming thing Tony could imagine. "I'll tell- I'll tell her when I'm ready. I can't now, not like- not like this."

He had sinned. He had strayed from who he was, and his weaknesses had let her down. The memory of Sunset's lips upon his made Tony shiver. He wanted to shower immediately, but before he could get to his feet, J.A.R.V.I.S. warned,

"_Ms. Potts is on her way down."_

"Shit." Reeling to his feet like a toddler, Tony raked a finger through his hair and looked wildly around for… something, he didn't know what. But it was too late; the ding of the elevator announced Pepper's arrival, and he knew his expression telegraphed his guilt, for she stopped after only three steps to look at him curiously with that laser-precision gaze of hers that so often caught him out. "Hi," he breathed.

"Hi." She kept looking. "Are… is everything alright?" It was a stupid question, and she knew it. Of course everything wasn't 'alright'. Things hadn't been 'alright' for some time now, but he knew it was obvious that something was bothering him more than usual, and that would worry her.

"Sure. Yeah. What?" Tony grinned, and it was horrific.

Pepper winced. She could press the issue, and had; for months she had alternated between pushing him into action, and tip-toeing lightly over sensitive areas she could tell were evoking painful memories he was not prepared to face. He had put her in a difficult position, and knew she was prepared to help him whenever he was ready to let her. He tried. Dammit, he tried, and they managed in fits and starts. It wasn't much, but Pepper was patient. Frustrated, but strong enough for both of them. He could see that, and he loved and hated her for it. All along, he had known he would hurt her. Letting her go would kill him.

"We need to talk." Patience and pushing – apparently this was one moment she needed to push.

Those were some of the worst words any woman could say to a man and Tony felt his heart drop out of his chest. Pepper was more intelligent than anyone gave her credit for, but how she'd found out about Sunset, he didn't know, and it was uncanny. Then again, perhaps she didn't know, and had simply grown tired of his cowardice. She was a confident, powerful woman, and he would not be surprised if she had decided to walk away from the mess – the even greater mess – he'd become. Either until he got his act together, or permanently if he did not. Tony wouldn't blame her.

Tony nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, okay. Of course." He hobbled back to his desk and sunk into his chair, a soldier ready to face the music. There was one bright note – she would be free, and he would be spared the torment of trying to hang on to the one good thing that remained in his life because he couldn't bear to let go of her willingly.

"Make it a clean cut, all right?" Tony wouldn't look her in the eye.

Frowning in confusion, Pepper stared at him until understanding dawned on her. "Tony," she went to him, sitting on his desk and brushing her fingers against his cheek. He inched his head away, deeply ashamed, but in the same moment, captured her hand and nuzzled his face against it needily, his lips pressed against her. She looked like she wanted to cry.

"I'm not leaving you. You and I have been through way worse than this; you think a little media scandal is going to scare me off?"

She was over-simplifying. He knew it, and yet he wanted badly to believe she meant it, even if she didn't know the whole story. His voice was raw. "I've been…"

"We've been through worse," she repeated definitively. "And we'll get through this too." Her hand fell on his, her eyes following the motion in an uncharacteristic attempt to avoid his gaze. "We'll have to." Pepper took a breath, and Tony realized she had something important to tell him.

"I'm pregnant." Pepper had never been a coward, and she forced herself to meet his eyes again, scanning his face for his reaction. "I know we didn't plan it, and it's not exactly the ideal time…" Far from ideal, with Tony's mental state less than stable, the government giving him trouble, and their business suffering due to their negative reputation in the media. This was something very real and immediate they needed to deal with though, more important than anything else.

There was worry on her face and hope in her eyes, which grew as wonder slowly blossomed in his chest. Except in joking hypotheticals, they had never talking about having children. Tony remembered the family he'd seen, two Christmases ago with his mother: a redheaded mother and daughter, with a dark haired father, together in the park. He'd wanted it, and now…

Then joy turned to horror, and Tony pushed her away, avoiding Pepper's gasp of shock, as he struggled to put some distance between them.

Tony shook his head, grasping it in both hands, his hair standing on end. The worst thing he could do was bring a child into all this. Into his world. His drinking, his despondency – Tony had become his father. His father, who had been cold and cruel; who had never once told him he loved him until long after he was dead. Tony would be a horrible father, just as his own had been.

"I can't," he whispered. "I can't be a father. I would destroy it. I don't deserve-" He choked, and the desire to drink was overwhelming. Tony went for the cabinet containing a bottle of scotch and fumbled it open, his hands steadying only when it was in his hands.

Pepper gaped at him with a numbed expression, knowing, he knew, where his reaction came from, and seeming to fight through the razor sharp edge of her heartbreak by grasping onto those decades of hurt he'd suffered.

"You are not your father." She was assertive, passionate, the voice used the same one that directed his life on a daily basis, and that he found comfort in for its dependability. "I know you, you're a good man. You're loving, and good partner, and you'll be a wonder-"

Tony laughed. It was a hard laugh, one he'd never given her before. "You call this a good partner?" He gestured around them with the empty glass to nothing in particular. "We both know I'm a wreck, we're just in denial."

"No, I'm not in denial." Pepper said quietly and evenly. "I just don't love you conditionally. You're strong, Tony, and so am I. This is not the worst thing we've faced."

"I kissed Sunset tonight." Make it a clean cut, that's what he had said. For her sake. Save her from himself. He would not only destroy their child, he would destroy her.

Pepper stared at him, her mask of Mona Lisa impenetrability sliding over her face, that particularly daunting expression that even made Tony nervous. After a full minute, as if divining the truth from his face through psychic means, Pepper decided, "No you didn't."

Tony wanted to lie to her, to insist that yes, he had kissed Sunset, that he had instigated some sordid affair that constituted an actual betrayal in the traditional sense of the word, but in the face of her unnerving formidability, he admitted, "…No." He hadn't poured the drink yet, and he wished he had ice, but the scotch would have to do on it's own. He tipped the bottle. "She kissed me. And I-" hand shaking, golden liquid slopped over his fingers. Tony swore under his breath.

"You left," Pepper said simply.

Admiring that she knew him so well, and cursing her for it, he simply nodded. "But I put myself in a position to allow it to happen. I've done a lot of that lately, and do you really think that's any kind of example to set for a kid? For your kid?"

"Tony," Pepper came to him again and gently took the un-tasted tumbler from his hand, putting it aside. "Please listen-"

"No." He stepped away from her, not wanting to risk her touching him and melting his resolve. "For once, you listen to me. I can't do this. I won't put you through what my mom and I went through. You deserve better; you both do. With all the shit that's about to rain down on me?" Tony shook his head, strengthening his determination by reaching past her to grab the nearly full bottle of scotch. "Take what you want, it's all yours. Everything. The government will seize it when I go to prison, anyway." 

Pepper tried to stop him; he was backing toward the door, but Tony continued to talk over her.

"As for the kid –" He avoided her eyes, finally turning his back and stabbed at the elevator so that he could get inside and escape her as fast as possible. He delivered his parting words over his shoulder with as much harsh finality as he could muster. "I'd get rid of it, so that its father won't be tempted to try to be a part of its life and ruin it in spite of himself."

He made the mistake of turning around in the split second before the doors closed, just in time to see the anguish he had put on Pepper's face.

The bottle was half empty by the time he tumbled back into the garage.

Happy was there, a shammy in hand, polishing the hood of the Bugatti. "Hey, boss," he said amiably, his cheery smile cutting Tony more deeply than seemed reasonable. "Going out?"

"In the fastest car possible," he answered.

Maybe it was the panic in Tony's voice, but Happy stopped what he was doing and turned to take a more considerate look at his employer, realizing for the first time that he was completely inebriated. Happy had been Tony's bodyguard back in the days when his boss's idea of a good time had been to see how much sex, drugs, and alcohol he could cram into one night, every night, so he was accustomed to handling situations like this. Not so recently, but he slid back into the role with admirable ease.

"How's about I give you a lift? Take you out in style?" Happy tossed the shammy aside and headed for the box filled with keys for the multitude of cars lined neatly up along the garage floor. Tony noticed that even the Audi was now properly arranged to conform to the appropriate feng shui.

"I want to drive." He tried to push past the larger man, but Happy stood in his way.

"No, I think it's better if I do it." He selected a set at random and looked at the tag. "Here's the Stingray. That's a good one. Where were you planning on going?"

His hand on Tony's arm, steering him toward the car, pissed Tony off. Jerking away and reeling back, he punched Happy in the jaw. It was a stupid thing to do to an ex-boxer, but Happy had enough sense not to retaliate against his boss and good friend, certainly not while he was drunk as an ass.

His eyes darkened though, a hand lifting to thumb away a trickle of blood from his nose while controlled breaths expanded and compressed the barrel of his chest. "You get one, Tony."

"You're not my dad, Hap. You're not my chaperone, you're my employee." He enunciated the word with such vitriol that hurt pooled behind the resolve in Happy's eyes. "If I want to drive myself, it's none of your goddamn business."

Happy stole a glance at the bottle, still in Tony's hand. "I don't think that's such a good idea. And Ms. Potts would be real sore with me if I let you do something foolish like this that might get you hurt – or worse."

Pepper. Tony's heart raced, and the keys grasped loosely in Happy's upturned hand blurred in Tony's vision. He had to get out of there, had to get far away, where they couldn't be hurt by him any longer. He had to-

Tony must have hesitated long enough for Happy to believe he was going to acquiesce. Snatching the keys from Happy's loosened grasp, Tony's staggered backwards, bringing the bottle to his mouth for another dose of courage.

"You're fired," he spat. Make it a clean cut. "No one tells me what to do."

He pulled away with a screech of tires, refusing to look at Happy's forlorn image in his rearview mirror.


	11. Chapter 11

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Eleven**_

_December 24, -:-_

Wordlessly, beyond the very ability to form words, Tony edged toward the bed as though gentling a wild animal. He was afraid to disturb the man resting there, even though it was clear to any who observed the wasting body in powder blue button up pajamas, that he would be disturbed by very little, ever again.

Tony's mouth worked silently, hesitantly, before finally the whisper of his friend's name came quietly: "H-ap… Happy? That you, buddy?" He didn't answer, of course, but the closer Tony got, the less of a question there was in Tony's mind that he was right about the man's identity. It was really Happy.

Sinking slowly onto the edge of the bed, so carefully as to avoid making more than the merest dent, he hesitantly took the larger hand in his, placing the palm atop his own to judge the weight of it, and feeling the dread of understanding that it's size was greatly reduced. Tony captured the hand between his two protectively, seeking even a spark of intelligence in Happy's eyes. There was none, and though they remained fixed on the television in the corner – Downton Abbey, Tony realized with an ache in his heart – they took nothing in, focused on something just short of the moving images on the screen.

Tony couldn't help himself from staring at the depression in Happy's temple, and curious fingers rose to touch, stopping just short of contact. Ghosting above the ridge, he scanned the concavity, a lump working in his throat. "What happened to you, buddy?" he croaked.

"He never left boxing," Howard explained solemnly. Tony started; he'd forgotten his father was there. "He had no reason to, because you never hired him."

Revulsion. Tears filled his eyes, and a short, choking sob exploded from him. "He used to tell me about boxers who stayed in the game too long; how he'd never wanted to be one of those drooling, brain damaged pugilists with Punch-Drunk Syndrome. He wasn't a good fighter, he always said-" His hand dropped to Happy's shoulder. "He wasn't one of the best, not good enough to last. He was proud to work for me. And I- I was so-"

But even that was better than this.

Howard moved closer to the end of the bed. "You know, you've been given a great gift, son: the chance to see how much you really matter. Not one in a million is afforded that chance. Don't waste it. Someone has a very special plan for you."

Spirits; second chances; third chances; Tony had every reason to believe, not only in 'Someone', but in his father's claim of a special plan, but in addition to all his proof of existence, he'd also seen ample proof to the contrary. "I've caused them so much pain," he whispered. "Maybe he's better off this way. At least he won't be arrested for abetting a traitor."

"Do you really think so?" Howard sounded irritated. Angry, even. "Do you really believe that they people you love would prefer a miserable life without you, to a life with you, no matter how difficult? They love you. Time and time again, they walked through fire for you, and you've done the same for them. They learned their strength from you. Without it, they're shells of the people you know, broken, scarred, unrecognizable, because life has-"

Tony raised his head.

"Pepper."

Standing so fast he pushed the bed two inches across the floor, Tony rushed at his father, grabbing his lapels. "Where is she? Where is Pepper? What happened to her?"

The sympathy in Howard's eyes scared Tony more than the words he spoke. "You're not going to like it."

"Goddammit, _tell me!_"

Howard pushed Tony away and maintained the distance between them with his hands on Tony's shoulders. "She's at the Stark Mansion – but it's not called that anymore. When your mother and I died, we had no family, so everything went to the person we trusted most - the person who became C.E.O. Virginia was always smart, and she made an impression on him, just as she made an impression on you."

"No."

"She became his assistant, and within five years, she'd agreed to marry him."

If she had died, Tony couldn't think of a worse fate. "She- she wouldn't. Why?"

"You know how charming he can be. He knew what he wanted, and he made sure he got it. When he ran for Congress the following year, he had the perfect wife; beautiful, charming, a delightful hostess, and by then, already disillusioned. Virginia Stane is practically a prisoner in her own home."

Virginia Stane. Tony couldn't bear it. "Take me to her."


	12. Chapter 12

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Twelve**_

_December 24 - 7:46pm_

Among other things, he had inherited his father's love of car. The Stingray was smooth, fast, and Tony pressed it to its limit with no thought to the damage he might do or the danger he was putting himself in. The scotch was a soothing anesthetic to his oozing guilt, and he applied it liberally as a solvent for the chittering noise skittering anxiously in his head. The furious buzzing of every waking nightmare competed with each other for his sanity till he thought he might explode.

Tony wanted nothing more than to disappear. The convertible piloted itself skillfully on an aimless path toward Pennsylvania, through the woods along winding roads that only occasionally took him past houses or through small Townships he had never even heard of. He could keep going, see how far he could get before he was no longer recognized. Tugging at him though, was the knowledge that if it were seen as an admission of guilt, it might reflect back onto Pepper, and he couldn't live with that.

It would be the same if he were to…

No.

Taking a turn too hard, tires squealed beneath him, and Tony's impulse to hold tightly to the wheel froze mid-twitch; then he let it go, letting it spin beneath his hands. It was freeing, not to be in control. Just like the old days. To not care.

Tony reached out and snapped on the radio, turning the dial until he found something he liked in Nirvana's 'Lithium'. They were better without him, safer. He wished he could go back to the beginning, to before he'd come into their lives, and prevent bringing on them any of the pain he had.

A ball of emotion built in his throat, and he reached for the bottle, only a few swallows left. As he swung around another turn on the unlit road, the scotch slid to the right, falling into the gulf between the seat and the passenger side door. With a grunted curse and a glance shot through the windshield, Tony stretched his arm in pursuit of his much-desired prize.

He didn't see the curve, or the guardrail protecting the embankment, until it was too late to avoid the fall. Although this time he followed through with the impulse to counter gravity, he could not prevent the Stingray from rolling in what seemed to be excruciatingly slow motion. And then it was tumbling faster, picking up speed as the bottom of the hill came closer. Tony bounced around as limp as a marionette, the wind battered out of his bruised lungs, and he felt something in his chest break, then his arm.

A scream arrested in his throat as the car came to a violent stop, top down, vaguely accordioned. Tony's head struck the steering wheel and, almost gently, he slumped into unconscious, a breath of red hair drifting through his head before he slept.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Thirteen**_

_December 24, -:-_

Stark Mansion shown like a jewel box in the night, every light ablaze in the flat, three-story, square building that had been Tony's childhood home. Pregnant with memories of his past, haunted by the ghosts of people long past caring, Tony still found that he could not get rid of the place. It sat across from Central Park unoccupied, like a beautiful tomb in which his parents spirits were undoubtedly enshrined.

Only this house was not his home. It belonged to Obadiah Stane, and the thought of that vermin burrowing within the walls of Tony's parents' monument, seemed an even greater sin than letting it remain forgotten. It enraged him.

A steady stream of people trickled out of limos, taxis, and expensive cars, flowing up to the front door where an unfamiliar butler let the tide sweep in. Pleased to note that there was no receiving line, Tony joined course, mid-surge. He was not as smartly dressed as the other guest, in their black-tie tuxedos. His suit was classy enough that while Tony didn't stick out like a sore thumb, he did appear to have dressed down for the occasion. Fortunately, he noted wryly, he had plenty of experience carrying off in flair what he didn't in style.

Directions were obtained from the raised eyebrows and inclined head of the dubious butler, who gave him a long and distinctly disapproving look before offering only the most rudimentary of answers to Tony's inquiry after the hosts' locations. Following the unhelpful gesture into the center of the main floor, Tony revolved slowly, taking it all in.

When he was a boy, there had been parties on this scale. Tables around the perimeter were piled high with food, and a bar occupied a place of honor at the head of the room. Among the guests, Tony recognized a few senators who held their seats in his reality, too. Actors, businesspersons, politicians, people who were famous for no discernable reason, and plenty he didn't recognize, as well. He did not see Sunset, which was just as well. Tony would have had a difficult time explaining himself to her if she'd seen him, but it said quite a lot to him, not about her, but about Stane, that the Senator's personal assistant was not in attendance.

In the throng, it took Tony some time to find the true objects of his search but finally, he spotted Obadiah Stane holding court at the foot of the staircase. The senator looked pleased with himself, master of his domain, and as confident as Tony had ever known him to be. For some reason, this pissed Tony off even more.

Tony hadn't thought this far ahead and glaring across the room at the man he was torn by the equally strong urges to confront him, avoid him, and hit him. His feet moved without urging, and Tony was crossing the floor. Energy coiled within him, like the strength of a tiger stalking its prey, and he was thirty feet away when, like a turn of the tap, the anger vanished and Tony stopped dead.

He'd heard her laugh. Tony looked, and ten feet to his left, sipping a glass of white wine, a woman stood chatting politely with Senator Stern.

Pepper never drank wine. It gave her a headache.

Tony stared at the changeling in the silver sequined gown, that did nothing for her, and the matching kitten heels on her feet. Her hair fell softly to her neck in medium-sized curls, a style evoking the 1950s. She had the figure, complexion, and nicotine stained fingers of a smoker, and looked five years older than he knew her to be.

Exhaustion haunted eyes that Pepper's smile never reached; worse - unhappiness.

A slow walk became a run, and Tony was beside Pepper (no, Virginia, not Pepper) and Senator Stern before he'd even realized he was moving.

"Excuse me, Pops." Tony scrambled for something to say. "I… was hoping our hostess would honor me with a dance?"

"Pops?" The Senator's eyes bulged, and Tony was certain it was worth it.

He did not miss the flicker of fear in Virginia's eyes, nor the swift glance toward her husband, but ever the good hostess, she simply smiled and gave Tony a short nod. "I'd be delighted."

Leaving Senator Stern sputtering after them and holding the wine glass Tony had taken from her, he offered Virginia his hand and drew her to the center of the room and into his arms. It was like dancing at a junior high school dance; the distance between them was awkwardly formal, but just intimate enough that she was conscious of his boldness, and startled by it. Tony guessed that no one presumed to make even the slightest advances toward Mrs. Obadiah Stane, and her darting eyes told him he right about where her true concern lay.

"I can handle him," he murmured. "Just dance."

Virginia couldn't have looked more shocked than if he'd opened with the truth about his identity. Fear lurked in her eyes, but only for a moment before her guard fell back into place, and her gaze raked his face intently for something familiar.

"Have we met?" The voice had resumed the tone of the perfect hostess, but her figure was tense beneath his hands.

Tony's throat thickened with grief that settled heavily in his gut. It took effort to speak, and he could see in her face, by the soft catch of breath, that she could see that somehow she'd caused him pain. "You should have," he rasped. Grasping for something to say to draw attention from his distress, Tony swallowed. "How's your head?"

Still focused on his inexplicable display of sorrow, Tony's non sequitur confused her. "My… head?"

"The wine. You always…" he made a vague gesture to his head as his voice trailed.

She stopped dancing. Darting a glance in Obadiah's direction, where he stood now with Senator Stern, watching them, Virginia lowered her voice. "This is ridiculous. What does he think I'm going to do? I know the rules, and I know what will happen if I-"

It was said with such decorum that no one near them noticed that anything was amiss. Tony took her wrist before she could finish to pull her back into the dance. "I don't work for him," Tony murmured. "I'd never work for him. I'm here for you." He met her eyes. "I'm a friend," he said earnestly.

He could count the heartbeats it took her to decide if she believed him. In fact, Tony was sure she still hadn't decided when she began to dance again.

"I don't have any friends," she murmured, eyes continually searching for something unnamed.

"You do," he insisted. "I know all about Stane. I know he's dirty, and I know he's not good to you." The last made him somber, and Tony asked, "Does he hurt you? He doesn't…" He couldn't even give voice to his fears.

Virginia stopped looking for her husband's security men and then looked this stranger in the eye. His concern was baldly written on his face, so much that she knew if anyone saw it, they'd be suspicious. "Not anymore." The words came out on an exhaled breath. "Mostly, he just leaves me alone, now."

Interpreting the words properly, Tony clarified, "You're trapped here."

She bit her lip, but nodded, once and curtly.

He fought not to pull her closer, behavior that would have been as much possessive as comforting. Virginia was still tense in his arms, but she no longer eyed Tony with concern, her eyes darting instead to the people around them like prey anticipating the predator. She was a lamb amid lions, even in her own den.

"I knew a Ms. Potts once." There had to be a way to capture her attention and hold it, and Tony was grasping blindly. As luck would have it, Virginia looked at him in surprise. "She was very intelligent. Competent; motivated; a bit of a temper," he smiled with wicked pleasure. "She was one of the most capable people I knew. I can't understand how she would end up married to someone like Stane."

Something stirred in her eyes. The ghost of the woman she used to be flared to life, and the reminder of the Virginia she'd lost, visibly changed her. For a devastatingly brief moment, she went loose in Tony's arms and the walls behind her too-wide eyes crumbled. In a soft voice he did not know she asked, "Who are you?"

The song ended, and Tony spun her into dip. Applause rose to mark the dance's end and through the din, above her fluttery gasp, he whispered, "Someone who'll be waiting in the greenhouse to talk with you, after you placate the snake you're married to, then excuse yourself for a smoke."

Without waiting for an answer, Tony wandered away through the crowd, pausing to chat with other guests as he went, in case he was being watched on his way toward the hallway that would take him towards one of the restrooms.

Benefitted by having grown up in the house, Tony took a roundabout route to the greenhouse, deciding it would be better if Obie didn't see Virginia following in his footsteps. Tony had no doubt she would come to him, it was merely a question of when.

The mansion's interior was not the same as he remembered it, and Tony tried not to look closely at the changes to his parents home. That was one sacrilege too many. Instead, he passed through a pair of glass doors out into a deep, rich, overgrowth of greenery through which the lights from the party shone in dappled patterns across the floor.

Soft colored lights lit the paths through the maze of plants, providing dim illumination, and Tony wandered only a bit, not wanting to stray too far. This, at least, looked the same, and he felt at home here. His mother had loved the greenhouse.

Soft noises nearby drew his attention, and Tony straightened from where he'd pressed his back against one of the many planter boxes, this one filled with vivacious birds of paradise, and came forward to greet whom he hoped was Virginia.

She stepped through a cascade of elephant ear, the sheen of her dress catching the variegated color of the leaves as the light bleeding from within the house caressed her. Virginia watched him from a short distance, not wary, but curious.

"Who are you?" she asked again, circling around the lily pond toward him.

He didn't have an easy answer. Traveling in the opposite direction, he said, "You'd never believe me if I told you."

She was quiet. "I'm the wife of a senator, I've heard a few unbelievable stories in my time."

This was undoubtedly true, and a response much more in keeping with the version of her he knew. It elicited a faint smile, and the truth. "My name is Tony Stark. I should have been the son of Howard and Maria Stark, only in this reality, I was never born."

He waited for her reaction, and it was a long time coming. Her face was impenetrable, and as equally familiar as it was foreign in its guardedness.

Finally, "The Starks. As in, the Howard that was Obie's business partner, before he died? They owned this house." At Tony's nod, she continued. "You do look like the portrait of him in the library. I thought you seemed familiar." Virginia considered him more closely.

She didn't deny his claim outright, and with anyone else, Tony might have been surprised. With Virginia, he felt a sense of pride. As different as she was, this woman was still discerning enough to not discount things out of hand because they seemed unreasonable. "So you were never born." She repeated, only a hair of skepticism coloring her words.

Tony breathed out a sigh through his nose, seeking the best, most simple, explanation. He began to pace. "I made a mistake. I made a lot of mistakes, and a lot of people I care about were hurt because of it. I thought that if I hadn't been born, they would have been better off."

Tony hadn't connected the dots for her, but waiting in silence for her next question, he could see her do the math on her own, as he'd known she would. Or hoped. It was a lot to digest, yet she did not treat him as though he'd lost his mind. In fact, without Obadiah standing over her shoulder like some grim spectre, Virginia seemed less cagey, more self-possessed, and not at all afraid of _him_.

She was thinking carefully, Tony could see the familiar wrinkle of skin at the bridge of her nose, and the lowering of her eyes that marked her underestimated analytical abilities. "You said you were here for me." Slowly, she began trying to piece things together. "You said I should know you."

He had come to see her. Did he need to tell her why? Just looking at her, he knew this wasn't Pepper, Virginia had none of her vitality. Most of the spirit she might have shared with his Pepper had been beaten and cowed out of Virginia, and he couldn't help the impotence of anger, because she should have fought harder. His Pepper would have. The woman who had stormed into his office in a fit of pique, then refused to let him push her round for the next thirteen years - she would have fought. Why hadn't Virginia?

"How did it happen?" He stepped forward, as much in passion, as in an attempt to quell the mounting volume in his voice. "How did a strong, intelligent woman get to be like this?"

Virginia's chest rose, her shoulders drawing back with the insult. Tony watched the color rise in her skin – one of his favorite past times. It wasn't as pale as Pepper's due to her smoking, but thinner and more delicate, like a layer of velum; she was worn.

"Who the hell do you think-" Her breath was coming fast, and the control it took to bite down on what could be agreed was a stupid question, Tony thought was admirable. Virginia was furious, but her eyes swam with unrelieved pain and frustration. She was a wounded animal who had never been allowed expression.

"Virginia. I just want to know what he did."

In her eyes, Tony saw the battle. The certainty that his insinuation was true – that she had let Stane win, and had been diminished by his victory. She was a wraith now, and had let it happen; Tony's willingness to shift the blame onto its proper source opened something inside her.

Pepper was an expert at maintaining the placid shell that made her appear inscrutable, and that kept her emotions firmly under control. Tony took considerable pleasure in finding chinks in her armor, even finding her anger sexy as hell. He could not, though, imagine the iron will it required Virginia to retain control of all the guilt, the anger, the despair that welled to the surface once the floodgates came ajar.

A shaky hand drifted up her thigh, to distracting heights and emerged with the lighter and cigarette case secured in a band there. The nervous laugh that rolled from her made it further difficult to provide the steady pressure necessary to create a spark, so Tony stepped forward and took the lighter from her.

Virginia watched him through her eyelashes as she pulled the first breath of nicotine into her lungs, then nodded her thanks. Returning the stare, Tony had to admit that the sight was damned seductive.

"Will he come looking for you?" The voices, even the music, from the party was entirely muffled. Encapsulated in this Eden, they would have no idea if anyone were coming until he or she was already inside.

Virginia nodded, but unreservedly. The array of emotions the answer created, from sorry to anger, were reflected in her expression, though only in the most minute detail. Had Tony not the experience in recognizing the same in Pepper, he would have missed it.

"Eventually. I told him I needed to lie down, that I had a headache. He expects me to return, but would rather I appear to be at my best." Virginia drew on her cigarette, weighing Tony. Perhaps still judging just how much she could safely tell him.

"_Quid pro quo_." Leaning against a box bearing a display of orchids, Virginia's challenge was as much implied as verbal. "I'll answer your questions, if you answer mine."

The smart, questioning arch of her brow was so like Pepper, Tony's heart constricted. He wondered if Virginia ever had the opportunity to negotiate in this way. "Done deal," he agreed. Remembering her question from earlier, he exhaled heavily.

"You wanted to know how I know you and why I was here. There are people I care about - people I love…" he rubbed the back of his neck. "One in particular. I'm here because I thought they'd be happier if I'd never been born, and now I've been given the opportunity to see…"

"...if… my life is better without you," Virginia finished for him, haltingly, eyes widening as she assembled the pieces. Digesting the information, she walked the path around the pool of water lilies, watching for the fish darting beneath the broad green pads. She must have had questions. When she looked at him again, her eyes were full of them, but she merely folded her arms and returned the courtesy, sighing and diverting her gaze back to the fish as though she were unable to look him in the eye.

"What happened." Her voice was flat and lifeless, and she took the time to finish her cigarette before answering, fishing out a new one as she did. "How did I let him take control of me, you mean." It was a rueful statement Tony instinctively wanted to protest, except he could tell it was true, even from her perspective. "I believe it was Shakespeare who coined the phrase, 'death by inches'. Obadiah killed me by inches, until there was nothing left but what he found useful. He did it with smiles, with charm, and with subtlety. By the time I realized he was not the man I thought I had married, he had not only taken from me everything I took pride in, he had also anticipated my reaction and blocked all my avenues of escape. By the time he first resorted to violence-"

"He did hit you." Tony's nostrils flared and his fists clenched, and he forcibly had to unclench them to avoid doing something rash.

"That's two, but I'll let it pass." She regarded him the way Pepper sometimes did when he was being purposefully dense. "Always as a last resort," she answered him, "And never anywhere anyone would see. Only once did it really hurt." Her face darkened, and she turned her face away.

He couldn't refrain from asking a third. "Why did you marry him?" Tony's incredulity caused the set of Virginia's shoulders to drop another inch, tension he hadn't noticed before. He was demonstrably aware of her husband's monstrousness, and that increased her comfort with him by the minute.

Virginia reached to touch the back of her neck in an achingly familiar gesture, then realized it would disturb her precisely arranged hair and dropped her hand. "He was charming. He admired – or at least he said he admired, my abilities. He was intelligent, and his age didn't matter; he's even attractive, in his way. It was his mind, and the way I thought he valued my mind; and how I felt as though I was the only person who mattered when I was with him."

It occurred to Tony just then that he had never asked Pepper why she loved him. He knew, with perfect perception and complete navel-gazing clarity, that his past misdeeds had put him squarely in the minus column, and that he should have seen the back of her years ago. He could not recall when it had happened, but at some point, Tony would not have failed to attempt any test of knighthood chivalry for her, but how he'd earned the chance to prove it, he would never know.

Hearing Virginia's reasoning, Tony had a window into Pepper's mind. A small glimpse at what she valued and might have found appealing in him, in spite of his obvious character flaws. Even at his worst, Tony had always valued Pepper's mind; her efforts on his behalf; and when she was there, with few exceptions (usually the pursuit of things that were bad for him), she was the most important thing in the room.

"Tell me about her. Me." During his reverie, Virginia had taken the time to consider how best to frame this question. "If this is me without you, how am I – how is she _with_ you?" Silence passed between them, although he had anticipated this most obvious question.

Not a wisp of music flew in to reach them from the party within, but Tony held out his hand in invitation, and with only a moment's pause, Virginia took it. This time his embrace was less cautious, and more tender. The gentleness made her stiffen, but then suddenly, shyly, she moved closer. Tony could imagine her loneliness.

"One day, a genuine Fury with red hair and green eyes stormed into my office. She'd spotted an error I'd made in the budget, and as no one would listen to her, she brought the problem to me directly." This, of all his memories of Pepper, was his favorite. Those indignant, flashing eyes growing wide with shock at the impromptu job offer. "I hired her on the spot, and spent the next ten years driving her nuts before telling her I'd fallen in love with her. "

Virginia hung on his every word. "That's similar to how I met Obadiah. There was an accounting error, and everyone was willing to let it go – I think now that he might have, had I not made such a fuss. He called me into his office the next morning and offered me the job as his assistant."

Tony hadn't been there, and Obie knew quality when he saw it. He wouldn't pass up a good thing when he could utilize it to its fullest.

"What's she like?" Virginia pressed.

"Smart. Witty. Strong. I'm not the easiest person to deal with, I could never keep a personal assistant before her; of course, I slept with most of them. Okay, all of them, but not her - and she never gave up." _'On me,'_ he thought. _'She never gave up on me.'_ "She has the patience of a saint – she'd have to. Not just because of me, it's tough for women to be taken seriously in the business world. I've always made it clear she was my right hand, but she was the one who got them to believe she was not some girl I was sleeping with.

"People give me credit for being a genius, but no one knows how much of my success depended on her. I don't know-" He broke off. "I don't know what I would have done without her. I don't know what I'd _do_ without her."

Virginia wasn't looking at him, and he wasn't looking at her, but a light caught a glimmer in her eyes, and Tony could have sworn it was the gleam of unshed tears. Her voice was soft. "Maybe without her, you would have turned out something like me."

Lonely, miserable, bitter and alone. Yeah, he could see it.

"Maybe," Virginia said, hesitantly. "We really do make a difference. Maybe she made you a better person, and maybe you made her strong." Her eyes turned up to his, any tears that might have been there, gone. "And happy."

There was a beat. A breathless moment that hung in the air while his eyes roamed her face, and hers held his, naked with more vulnerability than he'd seen on her face all night – or ever, on Pepper's. Excruciatingly slowly, Tony brought his mouth down over hers, drawn to that familiar place like birds returning home in the spring.

Virginia's lips parted in a gasp, inviting him deeper. As her arms laced around his neck in vague reverie, Tony cupped her head, heedless of what it might do to her hair. A soft noise deep in her throat pleaded for more, and he anchored her against him, arm around her waist. In the honey sweet, cigarette rough, taste of her, Tony gave what she needed, and sought absolution for himself.

When he pulled away, his hand moved to her cheek, thumb caressing her as she struggled to control the breath that came too fast and her heart pounding frantically beneath her ribs. She looked up, and the tears she'd valiantly held back earlier, began to flow.

"It is you," she whispered. "It should have been you."

Tony rested his forehead against hers. His heart had constricted so tightly, he thought it might burst within him. If he was never sure of anything else in his life, Virginia's words proved one thing – he belonged with Pepper.

In spite of the kiss, Virginia saw that in his face. Even affectionate, Tony was not affected the same way she was.

She understood. "I'm not her, am I?" Her smile was soft, wistful, and resigned.

Brushing his lips against hers one more time, he shook his head. "You're close."

This time, when they resumed dancing, it was a slow dance. Tony pulled her against his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin. "You can't stay with him." 

She breathed a sharp, darkly amused, note of laughter. "I've tried. Don't you think I've tried? I don't know how, but he's found me, each time. He's cut me off from everyone so that I don't have anywhere to go. The last time I tried-"

He waited, thinking she'd finish, but she didn't. "What?" he prompted.

Again, she hesitated, but finally continued in a lower voice. "He has people who track me down and bring me back. The last time, we fought about my leaving, which wasn't new, only this time, he knocked me down the stairs." Tony's arms reflexively tightened around her, so tightly, she grunted softly and slipped her hands beneath his jacket to press them more closely against his back.

"I was pregnant." Feeling his body tense for a fight over a long-dead issue, she rushed to speak again. "It was a good thing. I would never want Obadiah to be the father of my child, and as a result of that, I can't have more. I told him from my hospital bed that it would be the last time he laid a hand on me, and for some reason, maybe out of guilt, it has been."

Tony could only hold her, suffering from his own guilt. "In my world, he's dead," he told her. Virginia looked up, eyes widening with surprise. "I killed him. Actually, Pepper and I did."

"Pepper?" A crease appeared between her eyebrows.

"Oh." In the entire night, this had never come up. "That's what I call her. You. A nickname. First day I met her."

She thought. Then, "Why?"

The half-grin he gave her was fond with reminiscence. "She's a spitfire. Seemed to fit."

Upon consideration, Virginia allowed it, if not entirely approving, and bade him continue with the more important story.

"He tried to kill me so he could steal some tech I'd designed. He replicated it, and attacked Pepper with it. I had to fight him off, and with her help, we…"

For a split-second before it was gone, Tony saw the hunger that lurked in her eyes. A fierce and gnawing longing, and it was, he thought, yet another way in which Virginia and Pepper were different.

"Is that why you think she'd be better off without you?"

"No…" And as he thought about it, "Well, in some respects. That isn't the only time she's found herself in trouble because of me. I'm kind of an impulse guy, and in my line of work, that tends to be a liability." 

Virginia cocked her head, looking at the house. "Are you Stane- sorry, Stark Industries, C.E.O.?"

Tony winced, and Virginia couldn't help smirking sympathetically. "I am, but I'm also the big brain on campus, in charge of all things creative and innovative-" he flashed his most self-important grin. "And I also fly around in a metal suit saving people's lives, do-gooding, and battling the forces of evil."

She waited for the punchline, and when he didn't give it, Virginia settled into a position of healthy skepticism. She never stopped looking at him, though she did extract herself from his arms and fold her own across her chest in the same position Pepper assumed when puzzling over something troubling.

"I was kidnapped in Afghanistan," he offered the information freely, having a sudden need for her to believe him. "Some shrapnel got embedded in my heart, and I built this thing to replace the car battery that was keeping the shards from killing me." Tony rubbed his chest. "It's not there now, of course, I guess it doesn't exist because I don't, technically, but it's basically a high tech battery, and I use it to fly this suit of armor I built to escape. Then I built subsequent models, destroyed their cell, and have gone on to superhero fame."

Her skepticism began to fade, and as she slowly started nodding, something unknotted in his stomach.

"That's what Obadiah tried to steal?"

"The arc reactor." The absence of the sound of his fingers tapping the casing was disorienting. "He built his own suit. Too big. Kind of garish."

Virginia laughed. "You were in the war?"

They were long past trading questions now, but it didn't matter. "No. I was there giving a demonstration. That was back when S.I. made weapons in addition to its interests in aeronautics, robotics, micro-tech, and the fringe stuff. After what happened to me there I stopped production, and eventually we practically cornered the market on clean energy. There's no war there like there is here, although now the government has its panties in a twist that there's going to be one. That's really what this is about. I won't make weapons for them, so they want to sue me. It's hurting everyone I love, even my employees are suffering, and now there's a baby-"

He didn't see the slap coming. His attention had drifted as he rambled, to a bloom of star shaped blossoms in purple, each the size of his face, when her palm connected hard enough to snap his head to one side.

Touching his hand to the tender skin, Tony looked at Virginia in confusion, and there – there, finally, stood Pepper. Eyes sparking, hands on her hips, she was still too thin and prematurely aged, but her spirit had at last arisen from wherever it had lain dormant all these years. He could not suppress a grin.

"You're telling me," she said, voice low and threatening, and completely ignoring his pleased expression. "That you're the reason there's no war; that you stopped Obadiah from hurting who knows how many others; that you saves lives regularly in a flying metal suit _you_ built." She poked him in the chest, forcing him to step back. "You're telling me that your company traded weapons for clean energy; that you actually care that your employees are affected by what happens to you."

The light died, just a little, and some of the frailty draped over her shoulders again, like a shawl. "You're telling me that there's a Virginia out there who was given the opportunity to succeed, who is trusted and – _loved_. Who loves _you_."

He saw it. For the first time, Tony saw it, not in terms of what would be lost without him, but what had been gained with him. Oh yes, this was Pepper. Not his Pepper, but she was still teaching him, making him strong.

With epiphany, his smile had faded, and facing this ghost of his wronged love, it was Tony's turn to bear the marks of desperation on his face and in his eyes.

"A baby?" she asked.

Tony nodded. "I can't be a father," he croaked.

"Why not?"

So many reasons. So damn many. "My father was…"

She scowled again. Pepper. "Not _you_. Your father made weapons. You don't. If you can change that, why not other things? You can't be here and not believe you don't get to shape your own destiny."

Tony wanted to believe her. More than anything, he wanted to believe that he wouldn't let Pepper, or their child, down, the way his father had let him down. If he couldn't succeed in that most important task, he would rather never go back than return to fail them both.

Virginia saw it, saw his hesitation, and placed a hand on his chest. "You said that- that _Pepper_ never gives up on you. Do you think she would stop supporting you now, when you need her most? When you need each other?"

Of course she wouldn't. As ever, she would be his anchor. Pepper wouldn't change him. She wouldn't expect him to change. But she would hold him accountable, as she had always done, and it fell upon Tony with a staggering weight. His mother had done that; he remembered her suggesting that his father step away from his work so that he could spend time with his son. Tony remembered the annoyance in his father's voice, matched by the frustration on his mother's face, when Howard called for his son's removal from his workshop to a more convenient playtime location.

That would never be him. Not it a million years, he knew that as sure as he drew breath. There would be long nights and sleep filled days, there would be Iron Man and the Avengers, there would be times he became so involved in a project that he eschewed daylight for more than a week. But there would never be a time when any child of his would be pushed aside in favor of those things. He knew this because he practiced it with Pepper, and had, even before they'd become a couple. A child would be more involved, but could he handle that?

Maybe he could. He thought he could.

For the first time in days, Tony drew a full and easy breath.

Virginia smiled. "Go home. Make things right. You'll figure out what to do."

Cupping her cheek again, Tony kissed her forehead. "Thank you." He smiled. "Pepper."

This made her absurdly happy and she beamed at him, but pushed him away, somewhat reluctantly. "Through the back. I don't want them to see you again when I go in. And…" She paused, and he turned around. "Thank you for coming." They were the words of the perfect hostess, but said in the voice of a woman who'd been thrown a lifeline.

Tony was at the door when he heard her behind him again, and stopped.

"If… for some reason you can't get home… come back." Virginia studied her feet, embarrassed by her knowingly vain entreaty, but needing to try. "I know I'm not her, but – I could be close."

He turned back, joining her again. Tony pulled her into a hug and let her cling to him one last time. "Can you prove he's dirty?"

Virginia bit her lip, then nodded. A bit of Obie's conditioning kicking in to keep her restrained.

"Get out of here. Take what proof you can find to the press and tell them what you know; about how he's treated you, too. Get yourself over to Colonel Rhodes. He's stationed at Fort Hamilton, but you can probably find him at the Induction Center downtown, just above the Financial District." He rattled off the address. "Captain America is there, too. I'm sure Stane will have some contingency worked out for this, but if you have enough proof with you and can get those guys to believe you - tell him who you are. What's happened before. Ask for help finding work"

Trepidation mingled with hope that continued to bloom inside her, and she asked, "More of your friends?"

Tony nodded. "Maybe you'll help each other." He kissed her forehead. "Make your own destiny."

It was not something he ever imagined he would say, but tonight, as he left her watching him from the doorway, Tony did believe it was possible.


	14. Chapter 14

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Fourteen**_

December 24

"_God, watch over Mr. Stark, lighten his burdens. Last winter when we didn't have any heat, he-"_

" '_-attend to his help, O Lord, the God of my Salvation.' Tribulation afflicts him, and in his time of need, O Lord, please-"_

"_He's my best friend, and I know he doesn't talk to you, but I hope you won't hold that against him. Tony's a good man, and he needs more help than I can give him. So, if you could take a minute to throw a little something his way, I'd sure appre-"_

"_Dear God. The man on the TV said Iron Man gave weapons to trainists, and that's bad. But I know he'd never do that, because he's one of the good guys. Please tell Iron Man that I believe-"_

"…_he may be an asshole sometimes, but he pulled my fat out of the fryer hundreds of times, and he's the best friend-"_

"_Dear Lord – I know Tony's accused of things that may or may not have some truth to them, and personally, when I first met him, I didn't think much of him. He didn't seem to care about anyone, or anything but himself. But I've gotten to know him, and deep down, he really is a good man… though, I'd never tell him to his face. He's worked hard to atone for-"_

"_O' Lord -"_

"_God -"_

"_Our Father -"_

"_Hey – "_

"_Padre nuestro, que estás – "_

"_...given so much-"_

"_...really cares-"_

"_...don't give a damn what those morons on T.V. say."_

"_...the best boss-"_

"_...best friend-"_

"_...my hero-"_

"_...really changed-"_

"_I don't do this much. I'm not sure I know how, really. But… something's very wrong, and I don't- I don't know how to help him this time. Please give him peace. Please give him courage, and please grant me the strength and wisdom to know what I need to do. Thank you."_


	15. Chapter 15

_**Iron Man: It's a Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Fifteen**_

_December 24, -:-_

Tony broke into a run the minute he was on the street again and headed into Central Park for the place he had last seen his father.

"Dad? Hey, dad? Howard! Where the hell are you?" There was no answer, and a cold feeling began to drip through his veins. He couldn't be stuck here, not now. "Dad!"

"Hey! What's the problem, buddy? You know there's a curfew in this city, right?" A policeman edged nearer to him, a high-power flashlight in one hand, his other hand resting lightly on the butt of his pistol.

Tony took a few steps backwards before tottering in place, warring with the desire to put distance between them given the ruckus he'd caused at the induction center earlier that night.

Either Tony looked crazy or guilty for the officer froze, his body language that of someone who expected confrontation. "You alright, guy?"

Howard was still nowhere to be seen and Tony's mind worked overtime. He needed to get back and what if his father had left him? Tony couldn't imagine it, but at the same time, he couldn't wait. Maybe it was a test. Now that he'd decided what he wanted, he had to work for it?

"I lost someone," Tony tried to explain with the least possible amount of detail. "I'm fine, I just need to find him."

The officer's slow nod betrayed his disbelief, but as Tony was breaking no obvious law, he had no reason to hold him. "You get inside before nine, you hear me?"

"Yes." Tony needed a plan. There was only one place he could imagine his father going if he weren't here. The alternative was unthinkable. He just needed a way – "Hey, wait! Just a second."

The officer turned warily.

"I was in a car accident tonight," Tony explained, not needing to fake the frantic tone rising in his voice. "On I-80, heading toward Pennsylvania. My car was totaled, I hitchhiked here; now I can't find my dad, and I'm thinking that maybe he got help and went back to where we crashed." Officer… Stevens, Tony got a look at his nametag, said nothing, waiting for the other shoe. Tony dropped it. "I need a lift. To where I crashed." And then, as though it would make a difference, "Please.

The older man scrutinized him with a discerning eye, and Tony was glad enough of his story was true that it might pass muster with what was obviously a man who took his job seriously. Officer Stevens detached his radio and said a few quiet words into it, leaving Tony to wonder if he were about to be arrested, or catch a break.

"Car's that way." Jerking his head to the east side of the park, he started walking, expecting Tony to follow.

He did, sputtering thanks that was waved away with a surly grunt.

The drive was mostly silent, save for a few directions muttered and aided with hand gestures. Tony's agitation rose the closer they drew to their destination, and he was unable to conceal it from Officer Stevens, whose attempts to question him or draw him into conversation were met with distracted, monosyllabic, responses that did little to reassure his driver.

"There!" Tony was almost out of the car before Officer Stevens had brought it to a complete stop, pulling into a turnout on the two-lane, road along the interstate and out of harms way.

Heedless of potential oncoming motorists, Tony raced across the interstate to the turn he and the Stingray had taken too late. From the road, the car wasn't visible, but the moon, and one streetlamp, provided poor enough illumination that he reasoned his father could be down there in the dim light. Couldn't he?

"Dad?" Tony put his hands to his mouth and called again, but there was no answer. Officer Stevens was coming toward him, but Tony ignored his calls. Ignored everything, other than the thought of finding his father and going home.

Down he went with barely a thought, feet sliding on the loose dirt, rocks, and leaves as he tried to run down the steep incline and surfed most of the way. His uncontrolled descent gave way to gravity, and Tony landed hard as the ground gave way beneath him, but he ignored the pain and scrambled forward on his hands and knees until he'd regained his feet and was jogging toward where the remains of the Stingray should be.

He searched, desperately trying to remember how far the car had rolled, and into what clearing. His heart pounded, blocking out the voice of the officer, calling to him from the shoulder of the interstate behind him. Everything was muffled but the white noise of his own blood, claustrophobic and suffocating, stealing the breath from his lungs. He stopped, struggling to draw in air.

There was no car. There was no father. There was nothing. Of course not - he had never been born.

His brain refused to process, and sinking to his knees, Tony looked wildly around, hyperventilating, for his father, for any sign that he had even been there before. There was no evidence of a crash - no debris, no damage to the trees or underbrush. Not even the ground cover appeared to have been disturbed, and Tony fell forward, face falling into his hands in an agony of realization that he was trapped, forever lost in a misery of his own making.

He had no idea what to do, but he did know that he didn't want to stay there.

"I'm sorry," he gasped to himself. "Pepper - I'm so sorry. Rhodey, Happy… I messed up big. If I could take it back-"

"Hey Mack, you can't be down there!" Officer Stevens was shining a light down on him from the road, but Tony ignored him.

Tears came, and he dashed them away with his fingers, fighting back a sob. He was going to lose them all, and he had no one to blame but himself. He had pushed them away, alienated them and given them every reason to abandon him. Tony deserved it, had even wished for this exile, and yet now the thought of living without them, even if he faced a life filled with stress, anxiety, and looming disaster, was abhorrent.

"Buddy, can you hear me?"

"Please-"

"I'm coming down there!"

"I take it back. Please, I take it all back."

Tony never begged, but he did now. It didn't matter to whom he was speaking, to whatever cosmic force had assumed editorial control of his life, offering him repeated chances to alter his course and do things _right_. All he asked for was one more chance. A far too generous gift, more than he deserved, but maybe, just maybe, he could earn it. Be worthy of it.

"Dad-"

"You okay, guy?"

The light reached him, and Tony hunched his shoulders protectively, away from the glare. "Leave me alone, alright? I'm not leaving until-"

"Mr. Stark?" The officer kindly angled the flashlight away from Tony's face, leaving him in the corona of the light. "Mr. Stark, is that you? You're lucky to be alive."

Tony stared at him, frozen in surprise. "You know me?"

Officer Stevens looked concerned, but smiled reassuringly, no doubt assuming Tony was in shock. "I would imagine there aren't many people who don't know you, Mr. Stark. 'specially these days. How you feeling? Why don't you take a seat while I call an ambulance for you?"

Tony tried to leap to his feet, but pain shot through his chest and he sucked in a hard breath. He clutched his right arm close, feeling the sharp ache, and when he looked, Tony saw that once again, his clothes were torn, dirty, and bore traces of the blood that covered his face and body. 

"I was in a car accident," he murmured.

Forehead creasing, Officer Stevens crouched beside him. "Yeah, yeah you were. You're not looking too good either, Sit tight, I'm just gonna call you that ambula-"

Tony turned, too quickly for his injuries, and grabbed the officer's arm. A wild gleam had entered his eyes, in complete contrast to the severity of his situation. Letting loose a untamed cackle of joy, he shouted, "No! No. Take me home. I have to go home right now."

"You should get to a hospital. I can call someone, if you need-"

Shaking his head, Tony limped toward the embankment. He could get up there, broken bones or no. He'd done it before, but not with as much to gain. Or as much to lose. "I'll see a doctor later. There's something I have to take care of, first. Someone I need to…"

Stevens followed in agitation and reached for Tony's shoulder. Tony put a hand atop that of the other man's and resisted the urge to attempt to toss him aside like a rag doll, even without the benefit of the suit.

Instead, he turned to look the officer in the eye, fighting the mania threatening to burst forth, needing prove he was serious. "It's Stevens, right?" He looked at the nametag.

"Yeah." Then, after an awkward pause, he added. "It's an honor to meet you."

Tony left his hand covering the officer's, desperate to impress upon him how important this was. "Officer Stevens – I know you must be thinking I'm a few nuns short of a convent, but I need to go home. I need to make some things right, with one person in particular." He squeezed the man's hand. "Please."

Maybe it was the please – Tony Stark never said please – it was probably the please, but after a long hesitation, Stevens said, "Okay. But I'm still calling an ambulance."

That was all Tony needed to hear. He headed for the embankment again, scrambling with one-armed gracelessness to get to the top. "Great. Fine. As long as I can do what I need to do, first." Not that he knew exactly what that was, but Tony would improvise. He just needed to get to Pepper.

"And we need to have a talk about your accident. I'm guessing you weren't entirely sober when you made that turn." Stevens caught up to him and slung Tony's bad arm around his shoulder to help support him up the incline.

"Sober? I may have been blind." Stevens faltered, surprised by the admission, but pushed on to the top. "Let me take care of my business, and we can talk all you want. I'm sober now, and I'm going to stay that way; and I've got much bigger things to worry about than a D.U.I."

The patrol car was exactly where Tony and Officer Stevens had left it when they arrived, and Tony let out another peal of laughter, hardly able to believe that this was real. Or maybe this whole night hadn't been real. Maybe he'd been knocked unconscious during the accident and dreamt it all.

Only, Virginia - he was sure, that had been real; he couldn't have dreamt that lost, dismal version of Pepper.

"I guess you have got bigger things to worry about," Officer Stevens said warily.

The drive back to Manhattan was far more animated this time around, with Tony expounding manically on all the problems he needed to face – _would –_ face, had found the strength to face, in the days ahead. "She's not getting my company. I'll find some way to fight her on it. But even if I have to start from the ground up, she can't take what's in my head, and she can't take Pepper. That's all I need. Have to figure out what to do about the government, but we'll do it. Don't want to bring a baby into all of this."

Stevens cocked an ear. "You're gonna be a father?" This was big news, and would break like a tsunami once the world found out.

"Yeah. Just found out." His over-excited rambling slowed to a pace more easy to follow, and instead of staring out the windshield in the direction of the city as though willing the car to go faster, Tony turned to the officer. "Do you have kids, Officer Stevens?"

"I got three." Pride pushed his shoulders back, straightened his posture, even if his smile lived only in his eyes instead of on his mouth.

"Three." The number blossomed as an overwhelming concept, but ebbed into an overlay of three little faces that were the perfect coalescence of his own and Pepper's. "I never thought I'd be a father. I'm not really the best role model for one, am I?" He laughed ruefully.

Stevens was silent, in what Tony took, without insult, as agreement. Thoughtfully, Stevens took a quick glance Tony's way. "Doesn't always matter where you come from or what you did in your youth. Only thing that matters is what you're doing now. If you step up when it matters."

Tony was quiet. They rode in silence for the remainder of the journey, and when they pulled to a stop in front of the Stark Industries building, Tony said, "You can pull into my garage if you want to wait till I take care of business. Or if you trust me, I could come in tomorrow. It's not like you don't know where I live." He offered a wry smile. 

Steven's patted Tony on the shoulder. "Don't worry about the D.U.I., Mr. Stark. Get that car moved by noon, and I never saw you."

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Tony nevertheless gaped. That was a fairly large infraction the officer was overlooking. One a judge might not have looked favorably on him for, given his history, current prejudices against him, and the danger he'd put others in.

"Officer.."

"Go on - see your lady."

Tony wanted to hug the man. He didn't. "Thank you."

"Get out." Twinkling eyes belied the older man's gruff voice.

Chuckling, Tony did, but called back through the window, Merry Christmas, Officer."

As he jogged toward the door of his building, Tony heard a chuckling behind him. "Merry Christmas, son."

He stopped. When Tony turned to the street behind him, no patrol car sat idling at the curb, and the street was empty of them in both directions.


	16. Chapter 16

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter 16**_

_December 24 - 9:00pm_

He was shaken, but with a purpose Tony turned and made for the elevator, his pace increasing with each limping step. By the time the lift arrived to deliver him to the penthouse, he was panting like a steam engine and his ribcage vigorously protested the effort, along with an assortment of aches he was only just now beginning to feel.

"Hold the elevator!"

Tony growled his impatience, but slammed his palm between the sliding doors for the blonde woman in two-inch heels running his way. As soon as he recognized her he wished he hadn't been so chivalrous. She entered, the elevator began its ascent, and a few seconds of silence passed before he acknowledged, grudgingly, "Ms. Everhart."

Christine looked, every inch, like the proverbial cat who'd eaten the canary. "Well, if it isn't the elusive Tony Stark." Tony stepped sideways to increase the distance between them as she eyed him with the interest of a shark intent on its prey. "You look like you met the bad end of a truck. What have you been up to?"

"Communing with nature," he told her, and she was lucky she got that much out of him. Tony's run-ins with Christine Everhart in the past had not been pleasant. Mostly, that was his fault. She'd been one of his disposable one-night stands, but even before then, the interview hadn't been going well.

"You do realize you're bleeding?" She reached for, but didn't touch, the place above his temple that was matted with still wet blood, and her eyes traveled over his arms, chest, and legs to torn areas in his suit where more blood was visible. He looked like he'd been in a fight.

"It wasn't a peaceful commune."

Rightfully skeptical, Christine faced front again. "Trouble in paradise?" she asked, wearing a deceptively innocent smirk.

Tony's eyebrows rose incredulously, and he looked at her. "Really. That's where you're going."

"You smell like a distillery, you've obviously been in some kind sort of trouble. Looks like-"

He was spared any more of her armchair deductive reasoning by their arrival at his floor, where he realized to his dissatisfaction that she was still with him. Tony cursed under his breath. "Sorry, no visitors. This is private-"

The doors opened behind him without being given a security code, and Tony whirled around to find himself confronted with an apartment full of people. He recognized many of them: politicians, reporters, generals, many of his employees, board members - he even spotted the Avengers.

"It's visiting hours." Christine sauntered past, but didn't go far, sticking close enough to Tony for money shot.

Christine Everhart was not Tony's concern; he pushed his way deeper through the sea of people, wincing with every jostle. A line appeared to have formed, heading toward the bar, so he went that direction as well, ignoring the ripple of his name that surfed the room like a heartbeat once people began to recognize him.

Tony suspected he was about to be arrested. This only intensified his now all-consuming need to find Pepper. Nothing mattered until he did that.

"Tony?"

Her voice was the north star, and Tony immediately turned to follow it to its source. "Pepper?"

"Tony!" Pepper nudged her way toward him, and the unaccountable relief on her face filled him with such comfort and shame that he was struck dumb. She threw her arms around him, and Tony, though he tried to pull her in tight, whistled a hiss of pain through his teeth. Stepping back, Pepper noticed what she'd overlooked in her eagerness.

"My God, you're bleeding! Is your arm broken? What happened?"

Tony could hear hysteria beginning to creep into her usually unflappable demeanor, and stopped her with a hand to her cheek. "It's not the worst thing I've done." The words had an oddly pacifying effect on her, and she met his eyes, at last allowing some vulnerability from earlier in the night seep in. "I will never be able to say I'm sorry enough," he whispered.

Pepper didn't answer. Not verbally. She touched his hand against her cheek, then wrapped it in her own. "You need to see something. We can talk later, but right now - you won't believe what's happened."

Tony let her pull him toward the bar, looking aside only when she called an order for Happy to call a doctor for him. When the ex-boxer appeared, giving Pepper a two-fingered touch to the side of his forehead in salute, Tony wanted to cry.

"Hold on," he told her, and pulled his hand free. Happy eyed him cautiously, but didn't prevent Tony from putting a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said, for the second time that night. Tony never said he was sorry.

Happy looked him over critically, and Tony realized he was judging his condition, not his person. "The car?" his driver asked, none too optimistically.

Tony shook his head remorsefully.

Face drooping, Happy sighed. "So long as you're all right." He didn't sound as convincing as he'd meant to. "I'm gonna call that doctor for you. Don't keep Ms. Potts waiting no more, she's been working on this all night."

"I never felt better," Tony told him. And looking at Pepper as she reached for him again, he meant it.

She, however, looked as worried about him as she looked excited. "Come on."

Everyone in the room, Tony suddenly noticed, was focused on them; either openly staring, or trying to pretend they weren't. Pepper brushed past all his queries about why they were here, only saying, "You'll see."

The bar, he saw, now that they'd reached it, was covered entirely with papers. File folders, and printouts. What had once been a stack had spread out into several, and then an indiscriminate mass. Pepper grabbed for one proudly.

"After you left, J.A.R.V.I.S. told me about the news report, what Sunset had done, and once I'd seen it for myself, I called our attorneys.

Shame consumed him, and Tony's eyes closed in regret. He turned his face away, seeking an explanation that might possibly be sufficient, but Pepper forced the file she'd been holding into his hands. Hesitantly, he opened it.

What he held was a stock portfolio, specifically, that of one of his researchers. A signed letter affixed to the left inside front cover stated that all of the woman's shares in Stark Industries had been transferred to one Tony Stark.

Tony stared at it without realizing immediately what he was seeing, then reached for another document among the masses, finding a similar statement from one of his board members. His eyes widened. Unwilling to believe, he dug through the papers, finding that one after another, shares of S.I. stock had been transferred from his employees, members of the board, and even total strangers, into his name.

"I called everyone," Pepper explained as Tony searched faster, making order out of chaos, forming piles, and making calculations in his head. "Almost all of them responded, a few board members are on her side, but all of your employees, and even most of those who've left during the scandal - they were all eager to help. Then word started to spread and - Tony…"

As he watched, still more people came and added their freshly notarized documents to the pile, wishing Tony a Merry Christmas and, to his surprise, one of them was Christine Everhart.

"What?" she shrugged. "You know how I feel about drones."

"How?" Tony asked Pepper. "This is incredibly, but I can't understand why they all would-"

"Support the man who's supported them? Helped them, befriended them, given them jobs, saved their lives? This is the community you've built, Tony. This is not your father's legacy, it's yours."

Community. The word reverberated in his head with the sonorance of an old, portentous, memory. Two years ago, the spirit of his mother had emphasized to him the importance of love in all forms, even for his fellow man. Then, it had not mattered to him who his employees were. He did not treat them poorly, but neither did their names or lives concern him. It had been enough to know that he was doing good in the world, making a difference. Tony saw the bigger picture, and the small didn't matter.

Since then, since the night his life had changed again, Tony had opened his heart to more than just Pepper. He had striven to be a better friend to those closest to him, as well as those around him. His efforts toward making Stark Industries a leader in clean energy, and an innovator in technology that would save lives, had also escalated, and it had not been an effort to do any of it. On the contrary, it had been a pleasure. More fulfilling than he could have imagined.

And this was the unimagined fruits of his labor. Awe-inspiring. Moving. A lump formed in Tony's throat, but even so, he stared at the mound of papers in front of him and shook his head. "Pepper, it… it still won't be enough to take back the majority."

Without a word, Pepper dropped one last stock portfolio in front of him, and without opening it, Tony knew whose it was. The scrupulously well maintained folder contained more than a decade's worth of balance sheets, lists of dividends, annual letters from S.I. awarding her additional shares, and documents showing personal shares she'd either purchased on her own behalf, or that Tony had gifted her with over the years.

It was a modest, but not insignificant, investment.

Which she had signed over to Tony. Which instantly made him majority shareholder again. Neither spoke, for a long, meaningful moment, as Tony tried to come to terms with what he had almost lost that night; what he had almost given up. How many more times would she keep forgiving him, and how many more second chances would he get to not destroy the best part of his life?

"Pep," he started, but she was speaking, too.

"I spoke to our attorney's, Tony. Our accountants, advisors, even the board. They all say it's enough. She lost. The contracts you signed were obtained under duress, which is illegal. She'll be served with a lawsuit. We're going to sue her ass all over New York."

Relief. Why the hell hadn't he thought of that? Probably the alcohol, or maybe the depression. Tony had been living in a haze of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for months, but now he saw everything clearly again, and one thing made more sense than anything else.

"You're a genius." He grabbed Pepper and kissed her, melting against her so that he could pull her lean body against his.

There was the briefest of hesitations before she acquiesced. "We make a good team." Her voice sounded shy, almost uncertain. These were the same words Sunset had used, but this time, they were true, and Tony couldn't help thinking back to what he'd said to Pepper in the lab.

"We do," he agreed. "In fact-" Raising his good arm, Tony lifted his voice. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen - quiet down for a sec? Thanks." Pepper looked alarmed, but Tony just place his arm around her waist to keep her close.

"First off, I want to thank everyone here for their generosity. I don't know how I can ever repay you for what you've done for me, but I promise that as soon as things are settled, I'll return all your shares. I don't want anyone to suffer financially on my behalf. Second,"

The volume in the room rose, but Tony plowed on through, aware that recording devices had bloomed over the heads of other people. "Second, I want to finally say a word about the allegations made against me." Here, he waited for silence, which wasn't long in the making. "You all know that three years ago, I made the decision to stop weapons production after seeing my creations in the hands of terrorists. It's a decision I stand behind. I don't deny that weapons are a necessary component to war, but it will not be Stark Industries who provides them. And frankly, as we're not currently at war, I have no intention of escalating matters by getting involved.

"We will continue to help the government, and the armed forces, in other ways," Tony's voice rose above the din as the audience reacted to his statement. "But while the army may believe that 'collateral damage' is acceptable, I don't."

He had no idea if his speech was having the desired effect, or not. Tony gave little thought to it, except for the reactions of the woman at his side, who appeared pleased, if mildly worried. He couldn't blame her. There was a lot riding on the influence of his statement, no matter the truth of it.

"Lastly," Tony nudged Pepper into a slightly more prominent position. "I want to announce that beginning January first, the position of C.E.O. will be shared between myself, and Ms. Pepper Potts, who has already been instrumental in the care and management of Stark Industries for more years than I can remember." He felt her twitch in surprise, and tightened his arm around her waist. "This appointment is due entirely to her years of hard work, her intelligence, her fearlessness, her determination - and not at all because she's my future wife, and the mother of my child.

"Assuming she accepts, of course. The proposal, I mean. The baby is a given at this point."

He was drown out as the room went wild, but Tony desperately turned to Pepper for her reaction and found her staring at him in mute shock. "Please say yes," he murmured.

Her mouth worked wordlessly, and then, "We're not supposed to tell anyone yet in case something goes wrong. It's too soon…"

Kissing the corner of her mouth, Tony closed his eyes. People were watching. He didn't care. "Nothing will go wrong. Answer the question." 

He was so serious, his eyes so wide and pleading, that Pepper was drawn into focus by them. "You're sure?" she asked, seeking her answers in those same brown eyes. "About… everything?"

Unable to lie, Tony tightened his hands on her waist and pressed his lips to her throat. "I'm terrified," he confessed. "But like you said - we make a good team. I trust that you won't let me fail."

It was enough. It was more than enough, and he saw Pepper's smile spread like the dawn. Her arms wound around his neck, and she kissed him, deeply. A kiss Tony heartily returned, not caring if it hurt his ribs for a second.

"Yes," she murmured, barely pulling away to speak. "I'll marry you, Tony."

Cheers rang out; they had an audience, and Tony grinned against her lips.

"I'm not so sure about the C.E.O. thing, though."

"Just go with it."

"_Mr. Stark!"_

"_-just one question!"_

"_How long have you and Ms. Potts known about the baby?"_

"_What happened with Ms. Bain?"_

"_-wedding date?"_

"No questions," Tony said, hands raised defensively. "Not till I've had a chance to talk things over with her, anyway." He canted his head toward Pepper, and there was a wave of laughter amid the disappointment.

"What about Senator Stern's allegations that you're a traitor?" Christine Everhart, of course. Her voice filled the room without the need of amplification as though conviction made of her the spirit of Truth and Justice. "How do you plan to deal with that?"

In the pregnant silence that fell as everyone looked to Tony and waited for his reaction, he suddenly hopped the bar and strode over to Christine. "No questions," he repeated. "Except that one. Who's got a camera? Anyone?" Tony looked around and reporters scrambled for digital recorders; phones; notepads; and the few news crew that had been allowed, pushed forward. "Great.

"What am I going to do about Senator Stern's allegations that I'm a traitor," he repeated, once the cameras were rolling. Tony could see Pepper edging nervously closer in his periphery. "Guy's been talking a good game till now, but we all know that if he had an actual shred of evidence, he'd have had my ass thrown onto the Raft faster than I can finish a Rubik's cube."

Facing the camera, Tony opened his arms at his side. "Senator Stern - if you're so sure I'm as big a threat to this country as you say - come at me, bro. Either man up, or shut up. 'Cause I've got at least five people in the back of this room who I'm betting would guarantee I'm the exact opposite of a traitor."

He pointed, and cameras and eyes alike swung around to home in on the cluster of four men and one woman lurking near the stairs, all of them now trying to appear smaller to escape the attention. Steve was the first to give a short wave and, after a look to Tony, a confident nod to the camera. Recovering from the shock of sudden media bombardment, the others drew themselves up and did their best to look supportive, if awkward.

"Make that six."

Tony knew that voice, and barely noticed the shuffling of the crowd around him as cameras and reporters shifted to make room for Rhodey as he parted from the mob. He stopped eight feet away and looked over Tony from head to foot, his assessment evident in his warm, if critical, brown eyes.

"Before you say anything, I just want to say-"

"I hear congratulations are in order."

Tony couldn't swallow around the lump in his throat, and he was in danger of crying on television. "Well. When you've got superior DNA, it seems a shame to waste it."

Rhodey gave a sniff of laughter, and Tony knew that they were alright. "You're right. The world needs more Pepper."

"Our children will be geniuses, and smokin' hot."

Rhodey wasn't the only one that rolled his eyes.

Serious, realizing, as he asked, exactly how much the answer meant to him, he said, "You got my back?"

Rhodey shook his head. "I've known you since college, man. You may be a lot of things, but you are not a terrorist."

Tony hugged him. It startled Rhodey, caused some applause, but after that, Pepper shooed everyone out the door. _This_ was Rhodey. The man who would risk his career defending a friend who probably didn't deserve it. The memory of that other Rhodey whose reluctance to take chances had led to an unfulfilled life of fear and paranoia made Tony queasy.

Making another attempt at apologizing, he asked, "Are we cool?"

Rhodey rubbed the back of his neck, not looking at him. "I figure this kid of yours is gonna need some kind of positive male role model with you as the father. Gotta keep you and your new playmate out of too much trouble."

"Children love me. I'm going to be the coolest dad any kid's ever had."

"That's what I mean - Pepper's gonna need a break just trying to keep up with you two."

This possibility was not without merit. Although, "Our kid will be half Pepper, too. There could be tiny suits and kitten heels in our future." Tony remembered the little red-headed girl sporting similar footwear, with her parent doppelganger parents, in a park he'd visited with the spirit of his mother two years earlier.

"And neither of those options would be influence by gender," Rhodey snorted.

"We are an open-minded family, and we encourage the exploration of self-expression."

Rhodey shook his head. "Yeah, I believe that."

Thoughtfully, Tony said, "I hope it's a boy. Otherwise there will be a lot of dead teenager suitors buried in our backyard."

"You don't have a backyard, Tone."

"You're right. I'll have to get one. I could adjust to suburbia, right?"

In spite of himself, Rhodey laughed, shaking his head. "Not a chance."

"Talking about the baby's future already?" Pepper's eyes were filled with amusement beneath an elegantly arched eyebrow.

"I promise," Tony put his good hand over his heart. "I'll love him or her whether they go to M.I.T., or not. Harvard is an acceptable back up."

Rhodey gave Pepper a look. "You're sure you want to go through with this?"

Pepper looked Tony over, and despite her acceptance of his proposal, he actually felt nervous. "I wouldn't choose anyone else."

He caught the fingers she gently ran through the hair at his temple, and pressed them to his lips.

"I'll leave you guys to it. Congratulations." The hug he gave Pepper was more gentle than usual, but longer. Clapping a hand on Tony's shoulder, Rhodey said, "Later. For the record, I think you'll be great."

There was nothing Tony needed to hear more. Tilting his head to hide the effect of those words, he nodded.

Once Rhodey was gone, Tony and Pepper were alone, and the silence was deafening. She circled the room, haphazardly picking up debris left by the tornado that had swept through their apartment, while he watched her keep busy.

"Pepper - what I said-"

"I know. You were upset about Sunset." She didn't turn to look at him.

"That doesn't make it alright." He got up. If someone had called a doctor, he was taking his own sweet time. Pepper straightened when she heard his approach, but still didn't turn to meet him. Tony stopped before he was close enough to touch her, not knowing how to find the words.

"Look, I know I fucked up. I've been fucking up for months, and a 'sorry' doesn't begin to cover it. I don't have to tell you what Afghanistan did to me, because you see it more than anyone. We've just never - I can't talk-"

Pepper's head ducked as he stumbled, and she turned around, clutching a pillow to her midsection like a shield. "You don't owe me an explanation. I understand about your PTSD and how it's affected you since all this started. I didn't want to push you, but I hoped you'd eventually talk to me."

"I'm trying now. Tonight was the turning point, when you told me - I was terrified, about turning out like dad… I don't want to put my own kid through that." 

"Tony-"

"Just wait, okay? I had another… like two years ago. Only it was my dad, and it was this… epiphany, Pepper. I want to tell you all about it, but the important thing is that I know how incredibly lucky I am to have you, and I know that whatever happens, I don't have to worry about failing, because we're going to do it together."

She was quiet. Tony worried that he'd said the wrong thing, her face that unreadable mask as she put aside the pillow and came to him. "Is that why you made me C.E.O.?"

"Well, yeah. That, and you've practically been doing the job for years, so why not? You're brilliant."

She still didn't react, and just looked at him. But then, she took his good hand and placed it over her stomach. "You're going to be a father." Her tone was not to be argued with. "You're going to be a good one, and you won't fail, because I won't let you."

He needed to be holding her, and was relieved when she came into his arms readily, and even fell into his kiss. "You'll really marry me?" He asked, needing desperately to be certain that she'd meant it.

She smiled. "I wouldn't marry anyone else." J.A.R.V.I.S. announced the doctor's arrival, and cursing his tardiness, Pepper immediately extracted herself to go and greet him.

Tony hung onto her hand. "Can you forgive me for what I said?"

Tilting her head, Pepper regarded him with gravity and a touch of amusement. "I'm sure you'll make it up to me."


	17. Chapter 17

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Seventeen**_

December 25

"_Matters at Stark Industries took yet another unexpected turn last night when C.E.O. Tony Stark, after several months absence from public view, returned to media attention with a dramatic re-assumption of his role as majority shareholder. Hundreds of Stark Industries shareholders sold their shares to Mr. Stark to help him regain control; the mastermind behind this brilliant maneuver - none other than Mr. Stark's personal assistant, and girlfriend of two years, Ms. Pepper Potts._

"_In yet another series of events, Stark announced that Potts would soon be assuming the role of co-C.E.O., alongside him, just seconds before proposing to her on camera, and announcing that she was carrying his child…"_

December 26

" _-playboy Tony Stark is going to be a father!"_

"_I'm surprised it hasn't happened before now."_

"_That we know of."_

"_That we know of, right."_

"_So, let me get this straight, he's known this woman how long?"_

"_Ms. Potts - she's been his assistant for twelve years."_

"_But they've only been in a relationship for two. Do you find that hard to believe?"_

"_By all accounts… it seems to be true. He's not the same guy he used to be. She seems to be a good influence."_

"_If you've been working with someone for twelve years, even if you've only been dating for two - isn't that the same as being in a relationship for twelve? I know we've been working together for five years, and sometimes I feel like we're married."_

_(laughter)_

"_I'm curious to know what kind of woman stays with Tony Stark? I don't mean now, I mean before - what kind of person do you have to be to put up with him? And then start a relationship with him?"_

"_She's having a baby with him now."_

"_She's going to be co-C.E.O., too. I guess we'll get a chance to see exactly what she's made of."_

January 1

"_Ms. Potts assumed her position as co-C.E.O. at Stark Industries today with little fanfare, presiding over a meeting with the Board of Directors. This meeting was notable, as it featured promotion from within of Mrs. Deitrich to Board President, after the former president stepped down amid the Sunset Bain scandal. His role in that situation is unrevealed._

"_Ms. Potts' first order of business was to return all stock accumulated during the buyout to their previous owners, with the exception of her own, which will be held jointly with her partner and fiance, as insurance. Between them, they hold more than a large enough percentage to maintain a majority._

February 8

"_-completely unfit to be a father."_

"_You have to admit, he's cleaned up his act, Bill."_

"_You can wash a pig, that doesn't make it any less a pig."_

"_Pigs are actually quite hygienic."_

"_My point, Jon, is that the man has swam in filth. Just because he isn't now, doesn't erase that. How do we know he won't be drawn back into the lifestyle that he found so appealing for so long? And how do you explain to an - an - innocent child, how your father was infamous for sleeping with supermodels, and getting wasted? Not to mention blowing things up?"_

"_I thought you were in support of the blowing things up?"_

"_Don't change the subject."_

"_I think you use it as a teaching lesson. He obviously found that unfulfilling if he moved away from that."_

"_That reminds me, this _Pepper_ Potts. She seems like a reasonable woman, what possessed her to have a child with this man?"_

"_I'm gonna guess love. I'm also going to venture that she knows him far better than either of us do. And good for him for doing what more men in this country should do, and taking responsibility for their families."_

"_Hnh. I guess we'll have to wait and see."_

"_Bill, stop fighting it. You know you're impressed."_

March 16

_S: "Oh, and did you hear? It's official - Anthony Edward Stark will marry Virginia Grace "Pepper" Potts on Christmas Day, at Gotham Hall in Manhattan, this year."_

_K: "Wow, look at you with the names and everything."_

_S: "Girl, I am all over this wedding, it is going to be the event of the decade."_

_A: "So you think it's actually going to happen? They're booking it pretty quick, don't you think?"_

_S: "Of course it's gonna happen! That there is true, fairy tale romance."_

_L: "Oh come on. I admit, I think the wedding will happen, but fairy tale? Really?_

_S: "That girl worked for him for ten years while he's running around with every floozy that's got legs and breasts. That man was all over the Colonel's special. Then suddenly - there she is, and no more floozys. Two years, no other women, no pictures of him in the paper exposing himself, or drunk off his ass, or getting into situations. He's home with her. You see it on TV, he's got eyes only for her. She's either a witch, or it's a damn miracle, or it's true love."_

_R: "I wish them luck. She's going to have her hands full, but it sounds like she's used to it."_

_L: "We should have her on the show!"_

May 10

"_The verdict was handed down from the Senate floor today that in spite of Senator Stern's allegations, there is no evidence that Tony Stark of Stark Industries is working, or ever has worked, with a terrorist organization. Furthermore, in summation, the Senate described Stern's repeated slander of Mr. Stark as little more than a 'witch hunt', and offered their apologies._

"_Negotiations are rumored to have begun between the government and Mr. Stark in regards to the long debated Defense Contract, in the hopes of seeking a satisfying end for all parties involved. Mr. Stark has repeatedly asserted that he will not return Stark Industries to the production of weapons, but will be happy to assist any military efforts that arise in other ways."_

June 13

"_With unrest in the Middle East rising, the team known as the Avengers, has agreed to act as a military liaison in Afghanistan, in the hopes of preventing a much bigger conflict before it starts. This at the suggestion of Tony Stark, Iron Man, who arranged and agreed to it as part of the fulfillment of his Defense Contract with the U.S. military._

"_Captain America reported that he was, 'Happy to do my part for my country,' when asked about the deal, and the others expressed a desire to support their teammate, a recent father, and soon-to-be husband. 'If all goes well, he'll be home in time to help plan the seating arrangements. If not, we can only hope he doesn't have to postpone the wedding to get the job done.' "_

"_He's reported to have stated he'll be at that church on Christmas Day, if he has to show up in the armor, so I think we can agree that whatever happens, this will be one heck of an event."_

July 28

_**Announcement**_

_**Victoria Howard Stark**_

_Born:__ July 28th_

_Time:__ 5:20am_

_Weight:__ 7lbs., 6oz._

_Length__: 19.6 in._

_Hair:__ Red_

_Eyes:__ Brown_

_Mother and baby are healthy. Father is in shock. Friends are welcome, press are not._

September 24

"_Sunset Bain, C.E.O. of Baintronics, was arraigned today on charges of corporate fraud against Stark Industries C.E.O., Tony Stark-"_

"_-allegedly, 'induced him into an advanced state of intoxication, then manipulated him into signing documents while deliberately, and with malice of forethought, withholding the identity of several items, up to and including…' "_

"_-two years probation, plus $845,436 in fees-"_

"_-rumors of a thirty-year old theft, also perpetrated by Ms. Bain against Stark Industries have emerged…"_

December 20

"_We have confirmed that the Stark-Potts wedding will be continuing as scheduling. As threatened, it looks like Iron Man, Tony Stark, may be arriving at Gotham Hall in the Iron Man armor, but sources say that Ms. Potts is confident that he will be there, and is refusing advice that she postpone. If her instincts are correct, this wedding may be a sensation, for yet one more reason._


	18. Chapter 18

_**Iron Man: It's A Wonderful Life**_

_**Chapter Eighteen**_

_December 24 - the following year_

Both agreed it could be nothing other than a Christmas wedding.

The significant turns in their relationship over the last few years had all occurred on Christmas, so it only seemed right that they continue that tradition, and if they had a few extra guests drop in from the other side, at least they wouldn't have to worry about an extra place setting.

Though Pepper would have liked to have handle all the details herself, it would have been impossible while also preparing for the baby. Fittings for the dress needed to be put off until last, but it was all worth it when, one night in late July, an almost casual call to Happy resulted in an utterly frantic drive to the hospital, and a call to Tony via J.A.R.V.I.S., letting him know that his daughter was about to make her debut.

Battling a terrorist cell alongside the Avengers, Tony's only warning that he was leaving was the unintelligibly bleated, "Deal me out!" This was punctuated by the thump of a sonic boom that had their opponents ducking for cover, and as only one thing could provoked this reaction in their friend, by the time Victoria Howard Stark entered the world, after hours of yelling, crying, agitation, and love, all five of them had joined the group in the waiting room, ready to receive her.

When Tony came out to announce her safe arrival, they found him still wearing the distinctive red and gold armor - he'd never taken it off.

At seven pounds, six ounces, she had been the smallest human being Tony had ever seen and, he confessed to Pepper the moment he saw her, the most incredible thing he'd ever had a part in creating. Having laid hands on countless women, he'd been terrified to hold his daughter; now, Tori was practically a permanent fixture in his arms.

On the day of the wedding, Tony's arrival had been cut precariously close by a battle somewhere in the Middle East that had been raging for nearly a week. The press had milked the story of whether or not Tony would make it to the altar on time, but Pepper had never worried. Tony had promised he would be there - taped to his dressing room mirror, she'd left the note 'see you soon'.

The deafening fanfare outside her window, and the familiar sound of the repulsors, announced his arrival. From her swing suspended from Dummy's arm, Tori looked up and laughed. Pepper just smiled, and sent someone to take her to her father.

Pepper's wedding gown was sleeveless, disdaining the frigid New York winter, the golden color of champagne, and beaded with iridescent spheres and rods that threw rainbows in the light.

Tori wore a tiny gold dress that mirrored her mother's, along with a simple ruby necklace. Regally, she surveyed the proceedings from her father's hip, looking at five months old, as though she were the host.

Much to the disappointment of the media, Tony did not wear the armor, but almost as sensational, he wore red to his wedding. The jewel tones inspired by the bride, groom, and daughter, were echoed throughout Gotham Hall in an explosion of riches, like a Sultan's palace.

The ceremony - illuminated by the glow of more than two thousand candles, held by guests, participants, and strategically stationed around the altar - was heavily attended, even for Christmas day. Pepper would have been satisfied with a small service, but Tony wouldn't hear of it. Besides their friends, employees, business associates and other acquaintances, the press came in droves. Although assigned seating only in the rear of the mammoth hall, they were as thrilled as any child allowed to stay up late enough to see Santa Claus.

Two receptions followed, not one. At Gotham Hall, guests of the Stark-Potts wedding ate, drank, and danced, long into the night.

Back at Stark Manor - newly opened for the first time in twenty-three years - the Starks welcomed a much smaller number of guests home for Christmas dinner. These were only friends, family really: Rhodey; the Avengers; Happy; some old school friends of Tony's from M.I.T., with whom he'd re-cultivated intimacies over the past three years; people Pepper had met and found mutual support in during the months of her pregnancy.

In a day full of unparallelled moments, in years to come, it would be the memory of sitting at a table in his parents home beside his wife and daughter, looking at everyone who mattered to him most, that helped him get through the difficult nights when oppressive dreams of sand and heat came crawling from his past to find him, dark fingers clutching at his throat.

This was his community, Pepper thought, the word filling her with inspiration and hope, coming from somewhere deep within her. By now, the story of three Christmas' past was as familiar to her as if she had experienced it herself. His community. Tony's community; his mother would be proud. She watched her new husband, as from as distance, as he entertained Steve Rogers and his date - a lovely blonde woman named Sharon - with tales of their daughter's achievements, such as how she had began to roll onto her stomach two months earlier than other infants.

Pepper could see on their faces, and on the faces of others he spoke to, that they were amused by his enthusiasm for child-rearing. Tony had finished reading all of the baby books weeks before she had. Then again, he took to nothing without devotion, and Tori was more than a project, she was a piece of himself.

It was Pepper who first excused herself from the party, announcing a certain young lady's dinner and bedtime. Tony was urged to remain with their guests, as unnecessary to the immediate endeavor, and although he opened his mouth to argue all the ways in which he might be of service, Pepper's uplifted eyebrow made him think better of voicing them in mixed company.

It was a poorly kept secret that bets had been taken on which of her parents Tori would most take after as she aged. Between themselves, Tony and Pepper teased over details. Physically, she was all Pepper, excepting Tony's chocolate brown eyes, and the impish laugh that transformed her utterly into her father in miniature.

They had to agree that Tori's stubbornness came from both mother and father. As for her intelligence, it was obvious to anyone who spent an hour with her that she was her father's daughter. Tori focused much more intently on everything around her than the other babies they interacted with, and Tony proudly had J.A.R.V.I.S. display a chart of all the average learning curves she was breaking day by day. The graph, Pepper noted, extended on through college.

Fortunately for them both, Tori did not yet seem to have inherited her father's rebellious streak. Pepper had no trouble with their nightly ritual, and by the light coming through the window of Tony's old nursery, she rocked her daughter to sleep in his mother's rocking chair. This was the first night they had spent in this house, and they would discuss the possibility of making the arrangements permanent after Tony had the opportunity to judge how he felt about returning to the place again. He had voiced the idea to Pepper that the Manor would be a better place to raise Tori than the Penthouse, and she had left the decision to him.

Deep, breathy snores, signaled the baby's sleep, and Pepper gingerly transferred her to the crib Tony had once occupied himself. Pepper had a stronger appreciation for nostalgia than Tony, however his effort to restore the nursery of his youth instead of bringing their own furniture from home was something Pepper could find nothing but endearing.

She prepared for bed, knowing that it would not be long before her new husband joined her. It was, after all, their wedding night, and Tony had seduced her for weeks with tantalizing words, whispered in her ear while already driving her to exquisite agony, only hinting at what he had in store for her on that night.

Pepper's skin prickled; smiling to herself, she allowed one last peek at their daughter.

At first, she thought the voices must belong to Tony. He often spoke to Tori as though she could answer him back, and Pepper felt a quiver of annoyance that he might have awoken her. Then she realized she was hearing the sounds of two people, and paused defensively, wondering who among their guests would have dared come upstairs and into the baby's room.

"She has your eyes."

"Mm. Ah, look - she looks just like you when she laughs. Isn't that something?"

"A beautiful girl." 

"Of course she is, she's a Stark."

A furrow in her brow, Pepper pushed open the door, clutching her robe closed in one hand but freeing the other in case she needed to find a weapon. It was precaution, only. Judging by what she'd heard, she sensed she wouldn't need one.

The four of them stared at one another: Pepper, Tori - and Howard and Maria Stark. Even if the brief words she'd heard hadn't made her suspicious, seeing them could have left her with no doubt as to who was now holding her daughter.

They were here. It was Christmas, after all.

Pepper stepped inside and closed the door. "I'm… pleased to meet you." She was, but what else did you say to the ghosts of your husbands parents? Truthfully, there were hundreds of things she wanted to say to these two people, who had become so very important to her. Who were her family, even though she'd never met them.

She stared at Tony's face on a man older than he; in the twinkling, mischievous eyes of a woman who looked on her with such affection that Pepper wanted to throw her arms around her.

Maria seemed to understand and passed Tori to her husband before coming forward to take Pepper's hands in her own. "It is our pleasure to meet you, _figlia dolce._ You, who have saved our son countless times. We owe you so much." Maria kissed her cheeks, and Pepper lowered her eyes. The woman was beautiful. Pepper knew from photographs that Howard had been an attractive man, but she could see in Maria the almost feminine, delicate contours in Tony's face that made him so alluring.

Before she could protest the credit for Tony's redemption, Maria pulled her to the window seat, "Tell me about my son. What kind of father is he? He has so troubled himself over that." She looked to Howard for confirmation, and the man had the decency to look abashed for his role in Tony's self-doubt. Pepper couldn't help respecting the spirit for that.

"He's wonderful," she told them. "He's completely dedicated to her. Sometimes I think he's a better parent than I am. He was nervous at first, but as soon as he held her for the first time and she nuzzled her face into his bare skin, he was hers." Pepper smiled softly, remembering the shattered look of wonder on his face.

"Thank you." The words rolled off her tongue from deep within her. "For all you've done for him. And for me. Neither of us understand why, but the best part of my life, our lives, I owe to you." The first time Howard and Maria had appeared, they'd saved Tony and Pepper from a reality in which she'd died, married to someone else, but carrying Tony's child. Shortly thereafter, Tony had fallen to his death while intoxicated. The second time, the alternative, that he had never been born, seemed just as bad.

Howard and Maria exchanged a glance, and Pepper regarded them with apprehension. "What is it?" She began to imagine any number of things that could be wrong, prompting some form of divine intervention. Maybe even their reason for being here tonight.

Tony's father chuckled. "Wrong? Nothing. You said you don't understand why we've been after our son to make the right choices. There is a reason, a very important one." He placed Tori in Pepper's lap.

She smoothed her daughter's fine red hair and leaned into the small hand that reached for her chin, waiting for the explanation, until she realized she'd just been given it. Pepper looked up sharply. "Tori?" Two pair of eyes looked back at her, full of secrets.

A smaller pair of eyes, far more innocent, suddenly held their share of secrets, as well.

"Take care of her, _figlia dolce,_" Maria told her, giving a finger for the child to wrap her fist around. "And him. They are nothing without you."

Pepper nodded, mutely. She pressed her lips to Tori's fiery head and closed her eyes. It was a long moment before she found her voice and was able to tell them, "I will."

But when she looked up, the room was empty, and she had the distinct impression that she'd been kissed again. In her lap, Tori was laughing and holding onto a bag. Pepper pulled the drawstrings from her grasp, before they made their way into a curious mouth, just as Tony stuck his head in. Curiosity brought a frown to his face.

"She giving you trouble?" he joined her, pulling up the rocking chair to the window.

"No…" Pepper didn't know how to explain what had just happened, though if anyone would believe her, it would be him.

Tony's frown deepened to worry, but Tori's fussing drew his attention to the bag Pepper had just relieved her of. "What's that?"

In answer, Pepper spread the mouth and withdrew a black velvet jewelry box and a folded card. She knew who had left what she held in her hand. No one should open it but their son, so she passed him the card and held onto the box until he was ready for it.

"Pepper?" Eyes full of questions, even concern, Tony took the card and turned over the multiple folds, glancing at the cover of what appeared to be an ordinary, congratulatory card. They'd received thousands of them prior to the wedding. Tony opened it, read it, seemed to read it again... and then all the color drained from his face.

When he looked up and saw Pepper watching him silently, knowingly, Tony immediately guessed at what had happened. "They were here?" he rasped, and she heard the longing there.

Pepper nodded. "Both of them. What does it say?"

Trading the card for the box, Pepper looked at the two different sets of handwriting she recognized from Tony's documents. The first, Maria's hand, said:

'_We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.' ~ Luciano De Crescenzo_

_-M_

The second, in Howard's broader, more distracted script, read:

'_You save the world one man at a time; anything else is grandiose romanticism or politics.' ~ Charles Bukowski_

_-H_

At the bottom, in tight, unknown, handwriting, were the words:

'_There's a ripple effect in all that we do; what you do touches me, what I do touches you.' ~ Unknown_

_~Y_

A sharp intake of breath drew her attention and Pepper looked to the open box, seeing there a trio of rings. A wedding set, including a bride and groom's gold wedding bands, and a woman's engagement ring, set with a single pear-shaped diamond, surrounded by a circle of smaller diamonds. It was simple and lovely.

"Your parents'?" she asked.

Tony nodded. "What did they say?"

Pepper looked at Tori, now fast asleep, her face curled into the soft folds of Pepper's robe. Standing, she returned their daughter to the crib and turned to face her husband. Arms sliding around his neck, she kissed him. "Let's go to bed," she whispered. "I'll tell you everything."

His hand found the natural curve of her hip and cupped it, wondering, needing to understand why, time and again, his parents had given him extraordinary gifts such as the two women in this room. Pressing his mouth to hers, Tony lingered there, enjoying the feel of her against him, the taste of her mouth, the scent of her.

"Okay." He took her hand.

They were in the hallway when it dawned. "You met my parents."

Pepper laughed softly. "I did."

It was like finding a Christmas gift under the tree two days late. Laughter bubbled up inside Tony, warm and happy. He had lost something twenty-three years ago, but somehow, tonight, for a few brief minutes, it had come full circle. A family, where he'd had none for so long.

With a whoop, Tony swept Pepper into his arms and carried her into their room. She squeaked a protestation, then grabbed for his shoulders, attempting to look disapproving, but settling into something nearer to giddy.

"Tell me everything," he grinned. "But first, I believe I have plans for you."

Pepper flushed. Tony liked that.

"You're sure you don't want to hear about it now?" she teased, scooting away from him after being unceremoniously tossed onto the bed.

"Pep," Tony put one knee onto the bed, stalking her in her retreat. "This is our honeymoon. We have the rest of our lives to talk about it."

And what a wonderful life it would be.


End file.
